SIX  MAJOR 


EDWIN  E.SLOSSON 


ARY 

CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


$ ounfceD  in  /Bbemocg  of  IRobert  a.  ffrencb. 
CHURCH  DOOR  LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

FIRST  UNITARIAN  SOCIETY 

DAVENPORT,    IOWA. 


PRESENTED    BY 


SIX    MAJOR    PROPHETS 


Whoever  dies  without  recognizing  the  prophet  of 
his  time  dies  the  death  of  a  pagan. 

Mohammedan  proverb. 


SIX     MAJOR 
PROPHETS 


BY 


EDWIN    E.   SLOSSON,   M.S.,  Pn.D. 

LITERARY  EDITOR   OF   "THE   INDEPENDENT" 

ASSOCIATE  IN  THE  COLUMBIA   SCHOOL  OF  JOURNALISM 

AUTHOR  OF  "MAJOR  PROPHETS  OF  TO-DAY,"   ETC. 


BOSTON 

LITTLE,   BROWN,   AND   COMPANY 
1917 


Copyright,  1917, 
BY  LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY. 


All  rights  reserved 
Published,  April,  1917 


Norfaooti  $Kga 

Set  up  and  electrotyped  by  J.  S.  Gushing  Co.,  Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 
Presswork  by  S.  J.  Parkhill  &  Co.,  Boston,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


TO    MY    SON 

PRESTON   WILLIAM   SLOSSON 

WHOSE    THOUGHTS    AND    PHRASES 

I    HAVE    MORE    FREELY    INCORPORATED 

THAN    I    AM    WILLING    TO    ACKNOWLEDGE 

ELSEWHERE    THAN    ON    THIS    PAGE, 

THIS    VOLUME 
IS    GRATEFULLY    DEDICATED 


PREFACE 

A  FEW  years  ago  it  occurred  to  me  that  there  were 
living  on  the  same  planet  and  at  the  same  time  as  my- 
self some  interesting  people  whom  I  had  never  seen  and 
did  not  know  so  much  about  as  I  should.  Since  they 
or  I  might  die  at  any  moment,  I  determined  not  to 
delay  longer.  So  I  prepared  a  list  of  twelve  men  who 
seemed  to  me  most  worth  knowing,  and  then  I  set 
out  to  see  them ;  not  with  the  hope  of  becoming 
personally  acquainted  with  them  or  even  with  the 
object  of  interviewing  them,  but  chiefly  to  satisfy 
myself  that  they  really  existed.  One  does  not  go  to 
Switzerland  to  find  out  how  high  the  Alps  are  or  how 
they  look.  The  traveler  can  get  their  altitude  from 
Baedeker  and  their  appearance  from  photographs, 
but  if  he  is  to  talk  about  them  with  any  sense  of 
self-confidence  he  must  have  come  within  hailing 
distance  of  the  mountains  themselves.  It  is  sufficient 

[vii] 


PREFACE 

to  say  that  I  got  close  enough  to  the  Alps  I  had 
chosen  to  be  able  to  vouch  for  their  actuality. 

The  men  I  selected  for  study  were  those  who, 
whether  they  called  themselves  philosophers  or  not, 
seemed  to  me  to  have  a  definite  philosophy  of  life, 
those  who  had  a  message  for  their  own  times  of 
sufficient  importance  and  distinctiveness  to  merit 
public  attention.  It  is  my  purpose  in  these 
sketches  to  show  the  trend  and  importance  of  these 
diverse  theories,  so  that  a  reader  who  had  not  had 
the  opportunity  to  range  over  the  complete  works  of 
a  dozen  authors  might  find  which  of  them  was  best 
adapted  to  serve  him  as  "guide,  philosopher,  and 
friend."  In  a  word,  my  part  is  merely  to  act  as 
the  host  at  a  reception  who  introduces  his  guests 
and  then  leaves  them  to  follow  up  such  acquaintance- 
ships as  seem  profitable.  My  aim  is  exposition 
rather  than  criticism.  Although  I  have  not  thought 
it  necessary  absolutely  to  suppress  my  own  opinions, 
I  trust  this  has  not  prevented  me  from  giving  a  fair 
and  sufficiently  sympathetic  presentation  of  each 
man's  views  in  turn. 

My  list  of  the  "Twelve  Major  Prophets  of  To- 
day" consisted  of  the  following  names :  Maurice 
Maeterlinck,  Henri  Bergson,  Henri  Poincare,  Elie 
Metchnikoff,  Wilhelm  Ostwald,  Ernst  Haeckel, 

[  viii  ] 


PREFACE 

George  Bernard  Shaw,  Herbert  George  Wells, 
Gilbert  Keith  Chesterton,  F.  C.  S.  Schiller,  John 
Dewey,  and  Rudolf  Eucken.  I  had  not  taken 
nationality  into  consideration,  but  I  found  that  I 
had  chosen  four  from  England,  three  from  Germany, 
two  from  France,  and  one  each  from  Belgium,  Russia, 
and  the  United  States  of  America.  Four  of  the 
twelve  were  professors  of  philosophy ;  four  were  men 
of  science,  one  of  these  a  mathematician,  one  a 
physician,  one  a  zoologist,  one  a  chemist ;  and  four 
were  men  of  letters,  authors  of  novels,  dramas,  or 
essays.  The  twelve  sketches  appeared  in  The 
Independent  during  the  last  few  years,  but  they 
have  been  considerably  extended  for  book  publica- 
tion. The  first  six  named  above  were  published  in 
the  volume  "Major  Prophets  of  To-day."  The 
other  six  are  given  in  the  following  pages. 

EDWIN  E.  SLOSSON 


fix] 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACK 

PREFACE      ........        vii 

I     GEORGE  BERNARD  SHAW         .....          I 

II     H.   G.   WELLS 56 

III  G.   K.   CHESTERTON      .          .          .          .          .          .129 

IV  F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER       .          .          .          .          .          .190 

V     JOHN  DEWEY       .......      234 

VI     RUDOLF  EUCKEN  .          ......     276 


xi] 


LIST  OF  PORTRAITS 

George  Bernard  Shaw  .....  Frontispiece 

H.  G.  Wells Page     98 

G.  K.  Chesterton "174 

F.  C.  S.  Schiller "196 

John  Dewey         .          .          .          .          .          .  "      252 

Rudolf  Eucken     ......"      290 


xiii] 


To  write  a  book  about  a  man  who  has  written  books 
about  himself  is  an  impertinence  which  only  an  irresist- 
ible charm  of  manner  can  carry  off.  The  unpardonable 
way  of  doing  it,  and  the  commonest,  is  to  undertake  to 
tell  the  public  what  a  writer  has  already  told  them  him- 
self, and  tell  it  worse  or  tell  it  wrong. 

G.  B.  SHAW. 


SIX  MAJOR   PROPHETS 

CHAPTER   I 

GEORGE  BERNARD   SHAW 
DRAMATIC  CRITIC  OF  LIFE 

I  am  a  journalist,  proud  of  it,  deliberately  cutting 
out  of  my  works  all  that  is  not  journalism,  convinced 
that  nothing  that  is  not  journalism  will  live  long  as 
literature,  or  be  of  any  use  whilst  it  does  live.  I  deal 
with  all  periods,  but  I  never  study  any  period  but  the 
present;  and  as  a  dramatist  I  have  no  clue  to  any 
historical  or  other  personage  save  that  part  of  him 
which  is  also  myself.  .  .  .  The  man  who  writes 
about  himself  and  his  own  time  is  the  only  man  who 
writes  about  all  people  and  about  all  time.  —  G.  B.  S., 
in  "The  Sanity  of  Art." 

AUGUST  4,  1914,  cuts  time  in  two  like  a  knife. 
The  continuity  of  human  progress  in  science,  arts, 
letters,  commerce,  philosophy,  everything,  was 
broken  off  at  that  point  —  to  be  taken  up  again, 
who  knows  when  ?  Nothing  in  the  world  can  re- 
main quite  the  same  as  before.  Everything  is  seen 

[I] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

in  a  new  light.  All  our  old  ideas,  even  the  most 
ancient  and  most  reverenced,  will  have  to  be  taken 
out  and  looked  over  to  see  how  many  of  them  remain 
intact  and  useful,  just  as  after  an  earthquake  one 
overhauls  the  china  closet.  "The  transvaluation  of 
all  values",  which  Nietzsche  looked  for,  has  come 
to  pass  sooner  than  he  expected,  although  the  re- 
sults of  this  reestimation  are  not  likely  to  be  what 
he  anticipated.  It  is  not  merely  that  the  geographies 
will  have  to  be  revised  and  the  histories  rewritten, 
but  all  books  will  be  classified  as  antebellum  or 
postbellum  literature.  It  will,  however,  not  be 
necessary  to  mark  them  A.  B.  or  P.  B.,  for  they  will 
by  their  style  of  thought  and  language  bear  an  in- 
delible though  invisible  date  with  reference  to  this 
line  of  demarcation. 

We  are  already  beginning  to  look  back  upon  the 
antebellum  days  as  a  closed  period,  and  those  who 
were  conspicuous  in  it  are  being  seen  in  an  historical 
perspective  such  as  the  lapse  of  a  generation  of  or- 
dinary times  is  needed  to  produce.  Some  reputa- 
tions are  shrinking,  others  are  rising,  as  mountains 
seem  from  a  departing  train  to  rearrange  themselves 
according  to  their  true  height.  The  true  prophets 
are  becoming  distinguishable  from  the  false. 

Among  those  who  have  taken  the  test  and  stand 


GEORGE  BERNARD  SHAW 

higher  than  before  is  George  Bernard  Shaw. 
Whether  he  will  write  better  plays  than  before  re- 
mains to  be  seen.  Perhaps  he  will  write  no  more 
of  any  kind.  But  those  he  has  written  will  be 
regarded  with  more  respect  because  we  can  see 
their  essential  truth,  whereas  before  we  feared  lest 
we  might  be  merely  fascinated  by  their  glitter. 
Warnings  which  the  world  took  for  jokes  because 
of  their  fantastic  guise  now  turn  out  too  terribly 
real,  and  advice  which  the  world  ignored  would 
better  have  been  heeded. 

Few  writers  have  as  little  to  take  back  on  account 
of  the  war  as  Shaw,  although  few  have  expressed 
such  decided  opinions  in  such  extreme  language  on 
so  many  topics.  For  instance,  Kipling's  "  The 
Bear  that  Walks  Like  a  Man"  makes  queer  read- 
ing now  that  England  is  fighting  to  give  Russia 
what  then  she  was  ready  to  fight  to  prevent  her 
getting.  But  the  full  significance  of  Shaw's  fable 
farce  of  "Androcles  and  the  Lion"  is  now  for  the 
first  time  being  realized.  The  philosophy  of  this, 
his  most  frivolous  and  serious  play,  is  summed  up 
by  Ferrovius,  a  converted  giant  of  the  Ursus  type, 
who  finds  it  impossible  to  keep  to  his  Christian 
principle  of  nonresistance  when  brought  into  the 
arena.  The  natural  man  rises  in  him  and  he  slays 

[3] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

six  gladiators  single-handed.  This  delights  the 
emperor,  who  thereupon  offers  him  a  post  in  the 
Pretorian  Guards  which  he  had  formerly  refused. 
The  fallen  and  victorious  Ferrovius  accepts,  saying : 

In  my  youth  I  worshiped  Mars,  the  god  of  war. 
I  turned  from  him  to  serve  the  Christian  God ;  but 
to-day  the  Christian  God  forsook  me;  and  Mars 
overcame  me  and  took  back  his  own.  The  Chris- 
tian God  is  not  yet.  He  will  come  when  Mars  and 
I  are  dust;  but  meanwhile  I  must  serve  the  gods 
that  are,  not  the  God  that  will  be.  Until  then  I 
accept  service  in  the  Guard,  Caesar. 

The  great  cataclysm  does  not  seem  to  have  changed 
Shaw's  opinions  one  iota,  but  all  England  is  changed, 
and  so  he  appears  in  a  different  light.  More  of  his 
countrymen  agree  with  what  he  used  to  preach  to 
them  than  ever  before,  yet  he  was  never  so  disliked 
as  he  is  to-day  —  which  is  saying  a  great  deal.  The 
British  press  has  boycotted  him.  His  letters,  once 
so  sought  after  by  the  most  dignified  journals,  now 
no  longer  appear  except  in  The  New  Statesman. 
His  speeches,  be  they  never  so  witty  and  timely, 
are  not  reported  or  even  announced. 

Consequently  those  who  wish  to  hear  him  have 
to  resort  to  the  advertising  expedients  of  the  era 
before  printing.  A  friend  of  mine  just  back  from 
London  tells  me  that  he  saw  chalked  on  the  side- 

[4] 


walk  a  notice  of  a  meeting  to  be  addressed  by  Shaw 
in  some  out-of-the-way  hall.  Going  there,  he  found 
it  packed  with  an  enthusiastic  crowd  gathered  to 
hear  Shaw  discuss  the  questions  of  the  day.  The 
anti-Shavian  press  said  that  he  had  to  keep  to  his 
house,  that  he  was  afraid  to  stir  abroad  for  fear  of 
a  mob,  that  his  career  was  over,  that  he  was  exploded, 
repudiated,  disgraced,  boycotted,  dead  and  done  for. 
At  the  very  time  when  we  were  reading  things  like 
this,  he  was,  as  we  since  have  learned,  addressing 
weekly  meetings  in  one  of  the  largest  halls  in  Lon- 
don. Reporters  who  were  sent  to  see  him  hounded 
off  the  platform  witnessed  an  ovation  instead. 
The  audience  at  his  invitation  asked  him  many 
questions,  but  not  of  a  hostile  character. 

Shaw  thrives  on  unpopularity  or  at  least  on  public 
disapproval,  which  is  not  quite  the  same  thing.  It 
is  not  only  that  Shaw  would  rather  be  right  than 
Prime  Minister;  he  would  rather  be  leader  of  the 
Opposition  than  Prime  Minister.  He  would  be 
"in  the  right  with  two  or  three";  in  fact,  if  his  fol- 
lowers increased  much  beyond  the  poet's  minimum, 
he  would  begin  to  feel  uneasy  and  suspect  that  he 
was  wrong. 

When  Shaw  sees  a  lonely  mistreated  kitten  or  a 
lonely  mistreated  theory,  his  tender  heart  yearns 

(5\ 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

over  it.  For  instance,  when  all  his  set  started 
sneering  at  "natural  rights"  as  eighteenth-century 
pedantry,  he  appeared  as  their  champion,  and, 
practically  alone  among  modern  radicals  and  art 
lovers,  he  has  dared  to  commend  the  Puritans. 
The  iconoclastic  views  which  he  expressed  as 
dramatic  and  musical  critic  in  the  nineties  have 
been  vindicated  by  events,  and  now  when  a  young 
reader  opens  for  the  first  time  "The  Quintessence 
of  Ibsenism",  "The  Perfect  Wagnerite",  and  the 
collection  of  "Dramatic  Opinions  and  Essays",  he 
wonders  only  why  Shaw  should  get  so  excited  about 
such  conventional  and  undisputed  things.  It  is  no 
wonder  Shaw  is  "the  most  hated  man  in  England." 
Nothing  is  more  irritating  than  to  say  "I  told  you 
so",  and  he  can  —  and  does  —  say  it  oftener  than 
anybody  else,  unless  it  is  Doctor  Dillon. 

Shaw's  brain  secretes  automatically  the  particu- 
lar antitoxin  needed  to  counteract  whatever  disease 
may  be  epidemic  in  the  community  at  the  time. 
This  injected  with  some  vigor  into  the  veins  of 
thought  may  not  effect  a  cure,  but  always  excites 
a  feverish  state  in  the  organism.  It  is  his  habit  of 
seeing  that  there  is  another  side  to  a  question  and 
calling  attention  to  it  at  inconvenient  times  that 
makes  him  so  irritating  to  the  public.  His  oppo- 

[6] 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

nents  tried  to  intern  him  in  Coventry  as  a  pro- 
German  on  account  of  his  pamphlet,  "Common- 
sense  about  the  War."  But  this  is  almost  the  only 
thing  produced  in  England  during  the  first  weeks 
of  the  war  that  reads  well  now.  Compare  it  with 
its  numerous  replies  and  see  which  seems  absurd. 
Doubtless  it  was  not  tactful,  it  might  have  been 
called  treasonable,  but  it  certainly  was  sensible. 
Shaw  kept  his  head  level  when  others  lost  theirs. 
That  was  because  he  had  thought  out  things  in  ad- 
vance and  so  did  not  have  to  make  up  his  mind  in 
a  hurry  with  the  great  probability  of  making  it  up 
wrong.  In  that  pamphlet  he  presented  the  case  for 
the  Allies  in  a  way  much  more  convincing  to  the 
American  mind  than  many  that  came  to  us  in  the 
early  days  of  the  war,  and  his  arguments  have  been 
strengthened  by  the  course  of  events,  while  others 
advanced  at  that  time  have  been  weakened.  Shaw 
was  arguing  before  a  neutral  and  international  jury, 
and  so  he  did  not  rest  his  case  on  the  specious  and 
patriotic  pleas  that  passed  muster  at  that  time  with 
the  British  public. 

As  for  the  charge  of  pro-Germanism,  that  may 
best  be  met  by  quoting  from  a  letter  written  by  him 
to  a  friend  in  Vienna  early  in  1915.  The  language 
is  evidently  not  pure  Shavian.  It  has  been  trans- 

[7] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

lated  into  Austrian-German  and  thence  retranslated 
into  British  journalese. 

As  regards  myself,  I  am  not  what  is  called  a  pro- 
German.  The  Germans  would  not  respect  me,  were 
I  at  such  a  time  as  this,  when  all  thoughts  of  culture 
have  vanished,  not  to  stand  by  my  people.  But 
also,  I  am  not  an  anti-German.  The  war  brings  us 
all  on  to  the  same  plane  of  savagery.  Every. London 
coster  can  stick  his  bayonet  deeper  into  the  stomach 
of  Richard  Strauss  than  Richard  Strauss  would  care 
to  do  to  him. 

Militarism  has  just  now  compelled  me  to  pay  a 
thousand  pounds  war  taxation  in  order  that  some 
"brave  little  Servian"  may  be  facilitated  in  cutting 
your  throat  or,  that  a  Russian  mujik  may  cleave 
your  skull  in  twain,  although  I  would  gladly  pay  twice 
that  sum  to  save  your  life,  or  to  buy  some  beautiful 
picture  in  Vienna  for  our  National  Gallery. 

Shaw  has  always  condemned  militarism  because 
of  the  type  of  mind  it  engenders  in  officers  and  men. 
But  he  has  never  been  opposed  to  preparedness 
or  to  the  use  of  force.  In  the  London  Daily  News 
of  January  I,  1914,  —  note  the  date,  —  he  said  : 

I  like  courage  (like  most  constitutionally  timid 
civilians)  and  the  active  use  of  strength  for  the  salva- 
tion of  the  world.  It  is  good  to  have  a  giant's 
strength  and  it  is  not  at  all  tyrannous  to  use  it  like 
a  giant  provided  you  are  a  decent  sort  of  giant. 
What  on  earth  is  strength  for  but  to  be  used  and  will 
any  reasonable  man  tell  me  that  we  are  using  our 
strength  now  to  any  purpose  ? 

[8] 


GEORGE  BERNARD   SHAW 

Let  us  get  the  value  of  our  money  in  strength 
and  influence  instead  of  casting  every  new  cannon 
in  an  ecstasy  of  terror  and  then  being  afraid  to  aim 
it  at  anybody. 

At  that  time,  seven  months  before  the  storm 
burst,  he  not  only  anticipated  the  war,  but  said 
that  it  might  be  averted, 

By  politely  announcing  that  war  between  France 
and  Germany  would  be  so  inconvenient  to  England 
that  the  latter  country  is  prepared  to  pledge 
herself  to  defend  either  country  if  attacked  by 
the  other. 

If  we  are  asked  how  we  are  to  decide  which  nation 
is  really  the  aggressor  we  can  reply  that  we  shall 
take  our  choice,  or  when  the  problem  is  unsolvable 
we  shall  toss  up,  but  that  we  will  take  a  hand  in  the 
war  anyhow. 

International  warfare  is  an  unmitigated  nuisance. 
Have  as  much  character-building  civil  war  as  you 
like,  but  there  must  be  no  sowing  of  dragon's  teeth 
like  the  Franco-Prussian  War.  England  can  put 
a  stop  to  such  a  crime  single-handed  easily  enough 
if  she  can  keep  her  knees  from  knocking  together  in 
her  present  militarist  fashion. 

Of  course  Shaw  may  have  been  wrong  in  sup- 
posing that  an  open  announcement  of  Great  Brit- 
ain's determination  to  enter  the  war  would  have 
deterred  Germany,  but  as  we  now  know  from  the 
White  Paper  this  same  opinion  was  held  by  the 
governments  of  both  France  and  Russia.  On 

[9] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

July  30  the  President  of  France  said  to  the  British 
Ambassador  at  Paris  that 

If  His  Majesty's  Government  announced  that 
England  would  come  to  the  aid  of  France  in  the 
event  of  a  conflict  between  France  and  Germany  as 
a  result  of  the  present  differences  between  Austria 
and  Servia,  there  would  be  no  war,  for  Germany 
would  at  once  modify  her  attitude. 

And  on  July  25,  M.  Sazonof,  the  Russian  Foreign 
Minister,  said  to  the  British  Ambassador  at  Petro- 
grad  that 

He  did  not  believe  that  Germany  really  wanted 
war,  but  her  attitude  was  decided  by  ours.  If  we 
took  our  stand  firmly  with  France  and  Russia,  there 
would  be  no  war.  If  we  failed  her  now,  rivers  of 
blood  would  flow,  and  we  would  in  the  end  be  dragged 
into  war. 

Shaw  now  gives  the  same  advice  to  the  United 
States  that  he  gave  to  his  own  country  before  the 
war,  that  is,  to  increase  its  armament  and  not  be 
afraid  to  use  it.  In  a  recent  letter  to  the  American 
Intercollegiate  Socialist  he  said  : 

I  should  strenuously  recommend  the  United  States 
to  build  thirty-two  new  dreadnoughts  instead  of 
sixteen,  and  to  spend  two  billion  dollars  on  its  arma- 
ment program  instead  of  one.  This  would  cost 
only  a  fraction  of  the  money  you  are  wasting  every 
year  in  demoralizing  luxury,  a  good  deal  of  it  having 
been  in  the  past  scattered  over  the  continental 

[10] 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

countries  which  are  now  using  what  they  saved  out 
of  it  to  slaughter  one  another. 

If  the  United  States  wishes  to  stop  war  as  an  in- 
stitution, that  is,  to  undertake  the  policing  of  the 
world,  it  will  need  a  very  big  club  for  the  purpose. 

If  I  were  an  American  statesman  I  should  tell  the 
country  flatly  that  it  should  maintain  a  Pacific  navy 
capable  of  resisting  an  attack  from  Japan  and  an 
Atlantic  navy  capable  of  resisting  an  attack  from 
England,  with  Zeppelins  on  the  same  scale,  a  propor- 
tionate land  equipment  of  siege  guns,  and  so  forth. 
And  until  the  nations  see  the  suicidal  folly  of  staking 
everything  in  the  last  instance  on  the  ordeal  of  battle, 
no  other  advice  will  be  honest  advice. 

In  "Major  Barbara"  Cusins  abandons  the  teach- 
ing of  Greek  to  take  up  the  manufacture  of  muni- 
tions because  he  has  the  courage  "to  make  war  on 
war."  It  is  in  this  play  that  is  expounded  the 
theory  on  which  President  Wilson  based  his  policy. 
Lady  Britomart  tells  Cusins:  "You  must  simply 
sell  cannons  and  weapons  to  people  whose  cause 
is  right  and  just,  and  refuse  them  to  foreigners  and 
criminals."  But  Undershaft,  the  munition-maker, 
replies:  "No;  none  of  that.  You  must  keep  the 
true  faith  of  an  Armorer,  or  you  don't  come  in  here." 
And  when  Cusins  asks:  "What  on  earth  is  the 
true  faith  of  an  Armorer?"  he  answers: 

To  give  arms  to  all  men  who  offer  an  honest  price 
for  them,  without  respect  of  persons  or  principles; 

In] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

to  aristocrat  and  republican,  to  Nihilist  and  Tsar,  to 
burglar  and  policeman,  to  black  man,  white  man 
and  yellow  man,  to  all  sorts  and  conditions,  all 
nationalities,  all  faiths,  all  follies,  all  causes  and  all 
crimes.  ...  I  will  take  an  order  from  a  good  man 
as  cheerfully  as  from  a  bad  one.  If  you  good  people 
prefer  preaching  and  shirking  to  buying  my  weapons 
and  fighting  the  rascals,  don't  blame  me.  I  can  make 
cannons ;  I  cannot  make  courage  and  conviction. 

In  this  same  conversation  Shaw  also  gives  a  hint 
of  his  theology,  when  Cusins  says  to  Undershaft : 
"You  have  no  power.  You  do  not  drive  this  place; 
it  drives  you.  And  what  drives  this  place?"  Un- 
dershaft answers,  enigmatically,  "A  will  of  which 
I  am  a  part."  This  doctrine  of  an  immanent  God 
working  through  nature  and  man  to  higher  things 
was  developed  more  definitely  in  an  address  which 
Mr.  Shaw  delivered  some  years  ago  in  the  City 
Temple  at  the  invitation  of  the  Reverend  R.  J. 
Campbell.  Here  he  argued  that  God  created  hu- 
man beings  to  be  "his  helpers  and  servers,  not  his 
sycophants  and  apologists."  Shaw  continues : 

If  my  actions  are  God's  nobody  can  fairly  hold 
me  responsible  for  them;  my  conscience  is  mere 
lunacy.  .  .  .  But  if  I  am  a  part  of  God,  if  my  eyes 
are  God's  eyes,  my  hands  God's  hands,  and  my  con- 
science God's  conscience  then  also  I  share  his  re- 
sponsibility for  the  world ;  and  wo  is  me  if  the  world 
goes  wrong ! 

[12] 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

This  position  enables  him  to  explain  evil  on  evolu- 
tionary principles  as  "the  Method  of  Trial  and 
Error."  When  Blake  asks  of  the  tiger,  "Did  he 
who  made  the  lamb  make  thee?"  Shaw  conceives 
the  Life-Force  as  replying  : 

Yes,  it  was  the  best  I  could  devise  at  the  time ;  but 
now  that  I  have  evolved  something  better,  part  of  the 
work  of  that  something  better,  Man,  to  wit,  is  to  kill 
out  my  earlier  attempt.  And  in  due  time  I  hope 
to  evolve  Superman,  who  will  in  his  turn  kill  out  and 
supersede  Man,  whose  abominable  cruelties,  stupid- 
ities and  follies  have  utterly  disappointed  me. 

In  the  unactable  third  act  of  his  "Man  and 
Superman",1  this  theology  is  put  into  the  mouths 
of  two  most  unpromising  preachers,  Don  Juan  and 
the  Devil.  Here  is  found  one  of  the  most  eloquent 
arraignments  of  war  in  all  literature.  It  is,  remem- 
ber, the  Devil  who  is  speaking : 

I  tell  you  that  in  the  arts  of  life  Man  invests  noth- 
ing; but  in  the  arts  of  death  he  outdoes  Nature 
herself,  and  produces  by  chemistry  and  machinery 
all  the  slaughter  of  plague,  pestilence  and  famine. 
The  peasant  I  tempt  to-day  eats  and  drinks  what 
was  eaten  and  drunk  by  the  peasants  of  ten  thousand 
years  ago ;  and  the  house  he  lives  in  has  not  altered 
as  much  in  a  thousand  centuries  as  the  fashion  of  a 
lady's  bonnet  in  a  score  of  weeks.  But  when  he  goes 
out  to  slay,  he  carries  a  marvel  of  mechanism  that 

1  Published  by  Brentano's,  1904. 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

lets  loose  at  the  touch  of  his  finger  all  the  hidden 
molecular  energies,  and  leaves  the  javelin,  the  arrow, 
the  blowpipe  of  his  fathers  far  behind.  In  the  arts 
of  peace  Man  is  a  bungler.  I  have  seen  his  cotton 
factories  and  the  like,  with  machinery  that  a  greedy 
dog  could  have  invented  if  it  had  wanted  money  in- 
stead of  food.  I  know  his  clumsy  typewriters  and 
bungling  locomotives  and  tedious  bicycles ;  they  are 
toys  compared  to  the  Maxim  gun,  the  submarine 
torpedo  boat.  There  is  nothing  in  Man's  industrial 
machinery  but  his  greed  and  sloth.  His  heart  is  in 
his  weapons.  .  .  .  Man  measures  his  force  by  his 
destructiveness.  ...  In  the  old  chronicles  you 
read  of  earthquakes  and  pestilences,  and  are  told 
that  these  showed  the  power  and  majesty  of  God 
and  the  littleness  of  Man.  Nowadays  the  chronicles 
describe  battles.  In  a  battle  two  bodies  of  men 
shoot  at  one  another  with  bullets  and  explosive 
shells  until  one  body  runs  away,  when  the  others 
chase  the  fugitives  on  horseback  and  cut  them  to 
pieces  as  they  fly.  And  this,  the  chronicle  concludes, 
shows  the  greatness  and  majesty  of  empires,  and  the 
littleness  of  the  vanquished.  Over  such  battles 
the  people  run  about  the  streets  yelling  with  delight, 
and  egg  their  Governments  on  to  spend  hundreds 
of  millions  of  money  in  the  slaughter,  whilst  the 
strongest  ministers  dare  not  spend  an  extra  penny 
in  the  pound  against  the  poverty  and  pestilence  in 
which  they  themselves  daily  walk.  .  .  .  The  plague, 
the  famine,  the  earthquake,  the  tempest  were  too 
spasmodic  in  their  action  ;  the  tiger  and  the  crocodile 
were  too  easily  satiated  and  not  cruel  enough ;  some- 
thing more  constantly,  more  ruthlessly,  more  in- 
geniously destructive  was  needed ;  and  that  some- 
thing was  Man,  the  inventor  of  the  rack,  the  stake, 

[Hi 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

the  gallows  and  the  executioner ;  of  the  sword  and 
gun ;  above  all,  of  justice,  duty,  patriotism,  and  all 
the  other  isms  by  which  even  those  clever  enough  to 
be  humanely  disposed  are  persuaded  to  become  the 
most  destructive  of  all  destroyers. 

Three  years  before  the  war  Shaw  wrote  a  little 
satirical  skit,  "Press  Cuttings",1  which  was  deemed 
so  dangerous  to  both  Britain  and  Germany  that  the 
censors  of  both  countries  agreed  in  prohibiting  its 
production  on  the  stage.  Since  the  British  censor 
seemed  to  fear  that  the  principal  characters,  "Bals- 
quith"  and  "Mitchener",  might  be  taken  by  the 
public  as  referring  to  certain  well-known  statesmen, 
Shaw  offered  to  change  the  names  to  "Bones"  and 
"Johnson."  But  even  that  concession  would  not 
satisfy  the  censor's  scruples,  so  the  play  was  never 
publicly  put  on  the  stage,  though,  since  there  was 
then  no  censorship  of  literature,  it  was  published 
as  a  book.  Here  is  a  bit  of  the  dialogue : 

Balsquith  —  The  Germans  have  laid  down  four 
more  Dreadnoughts. 

Mitchener --Then  you  must  lay  down  twelve. 

Balsquith  —  Oh,  yes ;  it's  easy  to  say  that ;  but 
think  of  what  theyll  cost. 

Mitchener  —  Think  of  what  it  would  cost  to  be 
invaded  by  Germany  and  forced  to  pay  an  indemnity 
of  five  hundred  millions.  .  .  . 

1  Published  by  Brentano's,  1909. 
[IS] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

Balsquith  —  After  all,  why  should  the  Germans 
invade  us  ? 

Mitchener  —  Why  shouldnt  they  ?  What  else 
have  their  army  to  do  ?  What  else  are  they  building 
a  navy  for  ? 

Balsquith  —  Well,  we  never  think  of  invading 
Germany. 

Mitchener  —  Yes,  we  do.  I  have  thought  of 
nothing  else  for  the  last  ten  years.  Say  what 
you  will,  Balsquith,  the  Germans  have  never  rec- 
ognized, and  until  they  get  a  stern  lesson,  they 
never  will  recognize,  the  plain  fact  that  the  in- 
terests of  the  British  Empire  are  paramount,  and 
that  the  command  of  the  sea  belongs  by  nature 
to  England. 

Balsquith  —  But  if  they  wont  recognize  it,  what 
can  I  do  ? 

Mitchener  —  Shoot  them  down. 

Balsquith  —  I  cant  shoot  them  down. 

Mitchener  —  Yes,  you  can.  You  dont  realize  it ; 
but  if  you  fire  a  rifle  into  a  German  he  drops  just  as 
surely  as  a  rabbit  does. 

Balsquith  —  But  dash  it  all,  man,  a  rabbit  hasnt 
got  a  rifle  and  a  German  has.  Suppose  he  shoots 
you  down. 

Mitchener  —  Excuse  me,  Balsquith  ;  but  that  con- 
sideration is  what  we  call  cowardice  in  the  army.  A 
soldier  always  assumes  that  he  is  going  to  shoot,  not 
to  be  shot. 

Balsquith  —  Oh,  come  !  I  like  to  hear  you  military 
people  talking  of  cowardice.  Why,  you  spend  your 
lives  in  an  ecstasy  of  terror  of  imaginary  invasions. 
I  don't  believe  you  ever  go  to  bed  without  looking 
under  it  for  a  burglar. 

Mitchener  —  A    very    sensible    precaution,    Bals- 

[16] 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

quith.  I  always  take  it.  And  in  consequence  Ive 
never  been  burgled. 

Balsquith  —  Neither  have  I.  Anyhow  dont  you 
taunt  me  with  cowardice.  I  never  look  under  my 
bed  for  a  burglar.  Im  not  always  looking  under 
the  nation's  bed  for  an  invader.  And  if  it  comes  to 
fighting,  Im  quite  willing  to  fight  without  being 
three  to  one. 

Mitchener  —  These  are  the  romantic  ravings  of 
a  Jingo  civilian,  Balsquith.  At  least  youll  not 
deny  that  the  absolute  command  of  the  sea  is  essen- 
tial to  our  security. 

Balsquith  —-  The  absolute  command  of  the  sea 
is  essential  to  the  security  of  the  principality  of 
Monaco.  But  Monaco  isnt  going  to  get  it. 

Mitchener  —  And  consequently  Monaco  enjoys 
no  security.  What  a  frightful  thing !  How  do 
the  inhabitants  sleep  with  the  possibility  of  in- 
vasion, of  bombardment,  continually  present  to 
their  minds  ?  Would  you  have  our  English  slum- 
bers broken  in  this  way  ?  Are  we  also  to  live 
without  security  ? 

Balsquith  —  Yes.  Theres  no  such  thing  as  se- 
curity in  the  world ;  and  there  never  can  be  as  long 
as  men  are  mortal.  England  will  be  secure  when 
England  is  dead,  just  as  the  streets  of  London  will 
be  safe  when  there  is  no  longer  a  man  in  her  streets 
to  be  run  over,  or  a  vehicle  to  run  over  him.  When 
you  military  chaps  ask  for  security  you  are  crying 
for  the  moon. 

Mitchener  —  Let  me  tell  you,  Balsquith,  that  in 
these  days  of  aeroplanes  and  Zeppelin  airships,  the 
question  of  the  moon  is  becoming  one  of  the  greatest 
importance.  It  will  be  reached  at  no  very  distant 
date.  Can  you  as  an  Englishman  tamely  contem- 

[17] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

plate  the  possibility  of  having  to  live  under  a  Ger- 
man moon  ?  The  British  flag  must  be  planted  there 
at  all  hazards. 

The  play  ends  with  the  establishment  of  uni- 
versal military  training  and  equal  suffrage,  thus 
doing  away  with  a  militarism  that  was  both  tim- 
orous and  tyrannical,  snobbish  and  inefficient,  and 
at  the  same  time  making  the  nation  truly  democratic. 
It  is  characteristic  of  Shaw  that  recently,  when  the 
papers  were  discussing  what  sort  of  a  monument 
should  commemorate  Edith  Cavell,  he  interjected 
the  unwelcome  suggestion  that  the  country  could 
honor  her  best  by  enfranchising  her  sex. 

There  is  ever  something  in  Bernard  Shaw  that 
suggests  the  eighteenth  century,  the  age  of  Swift 
and  Voltaire  and  Doctor  Johnson.  On  the  credit 
side  we  must  reckon  lucidity,  incisive  wit,  clear- 
eyed  logic,  unashamed  common  sense,  love  of  dis- 
cussion and  openness  to  new  ideas,  freedom  from 
prejudice  of  race  or  class,  humanitarian  aspiration 
—  in  a  word  the  Aufkldrung.  On  the  debit  side 
some  items  must  unhappily  be  listed  also :  doc- 
trinaire intellectualism,  inability  to  see  either  the 
limits  of  one's  own  doctrines  or  the  point  in  other 
people's,  .inadequate  appreciation  of  historic  in- 
stitutions and  popular  sentiments,  contempt  for 

[18] 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

romance,    intolerance    for    science,    and    incapacity 
for  poetry. 

Shaw  seems  to  have  inherited  the  famous  saeva 
indignatio  of  his  great  countryman,  Swift.  For  all 
his  simple  diet  he  is  not  so  eupeptic  as  Chesterton. 
Chesterton  is  most  closely  akin  to  Dickens,  as  may 
be  seen  from  his  sympathetic  appreciations  of 
Dickens's  works.  If  I  may  be  permitted  to  express 
the  relationship  of  the  four  in  a  mathematical 
formula,  I  should  put  it : 

Shaw  :  Chesterton  =  Swift :  Dickens. 

The  mordant  wit  of  the  two  Irishmen  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  the  genial  humor  of  the  two 
Englishmen.  Chesterton  as  usual  makes  a  theo- 
logical issue  out  of  it.  He  says  of  Shaw : 

He  is  not  a  humorist,  but  a  great  wit,  almost  as  great 
as  Voltaire.  Humor  is  akin  to  agnosticism,  which 
is  only  the  negative  side  of  mysticism.  But  pure 
wit  is  akin  to  Puritanism ;  to  the  perfect  and  painful 
consciousness  of  the  final  fact  in  the  universe.  Very 
briefly,  the  man  who  sees  consistency  in  things  is  a 
wit  —  and  a  Calvinist.  The  man  who  sees  incon- 
sistency in  things  is  a  humorist  —  and  a  Catholic. 
However  this  may  be,  Bernard  Shaw  exhibits  all 
that  is  purest  in  the  Puritan ;  the  desire  to  see  truth 
face  to  face  even  if  it  slay  us,  the  high  impatience 
with  irrelevant  sentiment  or  obstructive  symbol; 
the  constant  effort  to  keep  the  soul  at  its  highest 
pressure  and  speed.  His  instincts  upon  all  social 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

customs  and  questions  are  Puritan.  His  favorite 
author  is  Bunyan.  But  along  with  what  was  in- 
spiring and  direct  in  Puritanism,  Bernard  Shaw  has 
inherited  also  some  of  the  things  that  were  cumber- 
some and  traditional.  If  ever  Shaw  exhibits  a 
prejudice  it  is  a  Puritan  prejudice. 

When  Shaw  in  the  preface  of  his  "Plays  for  Puri- 
tans" declared  himself  "a  Puritan  in  art"  it  was 
regarded  as  one  of  his  jokes.  So  it  was,  but,  as  the 
world  has  found  out  since,  his  jokes  are  not  non- 
sense. The  main  reason  why  the  assumption  and 
ascription  of  the  term  "Puritan"  to  Shaw  was 
thought  absurd  was  because  of  the  prevalent  mis- 
conception of  what  sort  of  people  the  Puritans 
were.  The  word  in  its  common  acceptance  implies 
orthodoxy,  conventionality,  prudishness,  asceticism. 
Now  the  real  Puritan  was  a  revolutionary  of  the 
most  radical  type.  Of  all  the  socialists,  anarchists, 
and  extremists  of  various  views  with  whom  I  am 
acquainted,  there  is  not  one  who  lives  in  antagonism 
to  his  conventional  contemporaries  on  so  many 
points  as  did  the  Puritan  in  his  day.  Milton's 
pamphlets  in  favor  of  republicanism,  free  speech, 
divorce,  and  new  theology  were  as  scandalous  to  the 
seventeenth  century  as  Shaw's  "Revolutionist's 
Handbook"  to  the  nineteenth.  The  Puritans  in- 
sisted that  marriage  was  a  purely  civil  contract  to 

[20] 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

be  made  and  annulled  by  the  State,  and  they  even 
forbade  ministers  to  perform  the  ceremony,  while 
Catholics,  Roman  and  Anglican,  hold  the  contrary 
theory,  that  marriage  is  a  religious  rite,  only  per- 
formed by  priests  and  indissoluble.  The  Pilgrim 
Fathers  who  had  a  dozen  children  and  two  or  three 
wives  apiece  —  consecutive,  of  course  —  are  not  to 
be  classed  as  ascetics ;  and  if  any  one  thinks  them 
prudish,  he  has  not  read  their  literature. 

Of  course  Shaw's  opinions  are  different  from  those 
of  the  Puritans,  indeed  quite  the  opposite  on  some 
points.  The  Puritans,  for  example,  were  not  averse 
to  blood,  either  in  their  food,  their  politics,  or  their 
theology,  while  Shaw  is  almost  Buddhistic  in  his 
tender-heartedness.  Androcles  is  his  caricature  of 
himself.  But  still  we  may  say  that  Shaw  is  puri- 
tanical in  his  type  of  mind,  his  attitude  toward  the 
established  institutions  and  moral  codes  of  his  time, 
and  even  in  his  faults. 

Consider  for  instance  his  intolerance.  No,  I  do 
not  mean  dogmatism.  That  he  comes  to  emphatic 
conclusions  is  much  to  his  credit  and  differentiates 
him  from  the  colloidal-minded  mass  of  modern 
writers  who  hold  no  convictions  to  have  the  courage 
of.  But  he  does  not,  for  instance,  content  himself 
with  the  attitude:  "For  the  life  of  me  I  can't  see 

[21] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

what  you  find  to  admire  in  that  absurd,  romantic, 
weak-minded,  sentimental,  butcherly  Scott."  He 
would  be  quite  justified  in  expressing  his  opinion 
thus-wise.  He  must  add :  "There's  nothing  to 
him  and  if  you  say  there  is,  you  are  deceiving  me 
or  —  what  is  wickeder  —  yourself.  In  either  case 
you  are  an  Idealist,  which  in  my  unique  vocabulary 
means  liar."  To  which  we  might  return  an  answer 
of  the  Quaker  sort :  "Friend,  thee  has  two  eyes  and 
the  usual  number  of  brains  and  so  a  right  to  thine 
opinion.  But  it  need  not  follow  that  because  thee 
sees  not  a  merit  in  a  writer  that  it  does  in  nowise 
exist."  Every  one  of  Shaw's  early  heroes  and  hero- 
ines, from  the  Unsocial  Socialist  and  the  daughter 
of  Mrs.  Warren  to  Undershaft  and  Larry  Doyle, 
admires  himself  or  herself  immensely  for  saying  to 
every  upholder  of  supposedly  current  morality : 
"Bah!  Humbug!  Hypocrite!"  To  which  again 
the  gentle  reply  should  come:  "Friend,  I  be  not 
an  Humbug,  nor  yet  an  Hypocrite,  nor  even  a  Bah. 
A  man  may  differ  from  thee  and  yet  be  sincere  in 
his  views,  although  this  fact  be  dreamed  not  in  thy 
philosophy.  I  may  be  right  or  I  may  be  wrong, 
but  if  thee  call  me  an  Idealist  yet  again,  lo,  I  will 
lift  this  brick  and  cast  it  at  thee." 

Wells  and  Shaw  are  quite  commonly  bracketed 

[22] 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

like  Scylla  and  Charybdis,  Dickens  and  Thackeray, 
Tennyson  and  Browning,  and  the  Royal  Blood- 
sweating  Chesterbelloc  of  Holy  Writ.  These  coup- 
lings are  often  absurd  but  rarely  arbitrary.  Some 
likeness  of  thought  or  mood  or  some  contrast  of 
viewpoint  usually  accounts  for  if  not  justifies  such 
literary  mesalliances.  Wells  and  Shaw  are  both 
socialists,  but  this  is  not  the  tie,  for,  as  the  English 
aristocrat  said:  "We  are  all  socialists  now."  The 
real  likeness  is  that  each  is  an  intellectual  anarchist, 
although  a  political  Socialist.  Shaw  is  an  isolated, 
not  to  say  eccentric,  figure  even  for  a  Socialist. 
Wells  has  gone  further  yet  in  his  self-isolation  by 
leaving  the  Fabian  movement.  But  the  unlikeness 
between  the  two  men  lies  in  the  motive  driving  them 
to  their  respective  hermitages.  Shaw  may  often 
change  his  point  of  view,  but  at  any  given  moment 
it  is  almost  brutally  clear  and  detailed,  and  he  in- 
sists upon  the  fullest  conformity  on  the  part  of  his 
would-be  followers.  If  they  fall  a  step  short  of  his 
iron  boundary  they  are  mere  Philistines  and  bour- 
geois, if  they  go  a  step  beyond  they  are  inefficient 
and  contemptible  sentimental  revolutionists.  Shaw 
always  has  "doots  o'  Jamie's  orthodoxy."  But 
Wells  seeks  a  Socialism  without  boundaries.  Marx- 
ian Socialism,  Fabian  Socialism,  State  Socialism  are 

[23] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

all  too  narrow  and  dogmatic  for  his  taste  as  he  has 
said  time  and  time  again.  Finding  no  true  all- 
inclusive,  universe-wide  Socialism  he  erects  his  own 
banner  for  the  nations  to  rally  to  and  as  a  result 
suffers  the  universal  fate  of  those  who  try  to  found 
Churches  of  Humanity  and  World  Languages,  that 
is,  merely  succeeding  in  founding  a  new  sect  and  a 
new  dialect. 

Shaw  has  two  defects  which  militate  against  his 
popularity ;  first,  he  is  too  conventional,  and,  second, 
his  conventions  are  peculiarly  his  own.  "There  is," 
says  his  Undershaft,  "only  one  true  morality  for 
every  man,  but  not  every  man  has  the  same  moral- 
ity." Shaw  is  easily  shocked,  but  never  by  the 
same  things  that  shock  other  people. 

He  himself  ascribes  his  inability  to  see  the  same 
as  others  to  his  sight  being  abnormally  normal. 
The  oculist  who  examined  them  said  they  were  the 
only  pair  of  absolutely  correct  eyes  he  had  ever  come 
across. 

Of  course  this  illusion  of  possessing  perfect  mental 
vision  is  common  to  everybody.  All  the  opinions 
I  hold  at  this  moment  are,  I  believe,  absolutely 
correct;  otherwise  I  should  change  them  instanter, 
though  I  must  admit,  seeing  how  often  I  have  erred 
in  the  past,  that  a  priori  the  chances  are  against  my 

[24] 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

being  altogether  right  now.  But  what  Shaw  means 
by  his  normality  of  vision  is  not  merely  common 
confidence  in  one's  own  orthodoxy,  but  has  reference 
to  his  fanatical  efforts  to  tear  away  all  the  illusions 
of  life  and  see  things  as  they  are.  I  do  not  think 
that  he  often  succeeds.  Isis  has  many  veils,  and 
those  who  have  torn  away  the  first  and  the  second 
are  all  the  more  likely  to  be  deceived  in  mistaking 
the  third  for  the  naked  truth. 

There  is  no  doubting  Shaw's  intent  to  undeceive 
the  world  or  his  willingness  to  undeceive  himself. 
"My  way  of  joking  is  to  tell  the  truth,"  says  his 
Father  Keegan  in  "John  Bull's  Other  Island."  But 
when  he  strains  his  eyes  to  see  something  clearly 
he  sees  only  that  one  thing.  By  following  consis- 
tently one  line  of  logic  —  instead  of  several  as  he 
should  —  he  gets  tangled  up  in  illogicalities.  His 
mode  of  reasoning  is  often  the  reductio  ad  absurdum 
of  his  own  theories,  and  this  is  not  a  persuasive 
way  of  argumentation. 

By  temperament  Shaw  is  a  mystic,  but  his  con- 
science compels  him  to  assume  the  method  of  cold 
intellectualism.  He  is  an  artist  in  the  disguise  of 
a  scientist,  not  an  uncommon  thing  to  see  in  this 
so-called  age  of  science. 

Probably  Shaw  is  not  more  inconsistent  than  any 
[25] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

man  of  agile  mind  who  is  capable  of  seeing  in  suc- 
cession different  sides  of  a  thing,  but  he  is  franker 
in  expressing  the  point  of  view  he  holds  at  the  time. 
Consequently  he  has  many  admirers  but  few  fol- 
lowers. They  can't  keep  up.  The  only  possible 
Shavian  is  Shaw. 

As  somebody  has  remarked  there  are  two  ways 
of  saying  a  thing;  there  are  writers  who  provoke 
thought  and  writers  who  provoke  thinkers.  Shaw 
does  both.  This  is  intentional,  and  he  defends  it 
on  the  ground  that;  "If  you  don't  say  a  thing  in 
an  irritating  way,  you  may  just  as  well  not  say  it 
at  all  —  since  nobody  will  trouble  themselves  about 
anything  that  does  not  trouble  them."  In  short 
Shaw  first  got  the  ear  of  the  public  by  pulling  it, 
and  he  does  not  know  how  to  let  go.  Shaw's 
argument  is  a  wedge,  but  it  is  driven  in  blunt  end 
first.  A  startling  statement,  some  monstrous  para- 
dox, is  presented  to  the  reader  and  rouses  his  an- 
tagonism, then  it  is  gradually  qualified  and  whittled 
down,  or  wittily  diverted,  so  that  it  seems,  in  con- 
trast to  its  first  form,  quite  innocuous  and  acceptable, 
and  the  reader  is  so  relieved  at  not  having  to  swallow 
the  dose  first  presented  to  him  that  he  willingly 
takes  more  than  he  otherwise  would.  Shaw  has  not 
the  judicial  mind  and  does  not  want  to  have.  "The 

[26] 


GEORGE  BERNARD   SHAW 

way  to  get  at  the  merits  of  a  case,"  he  says  "is  not  to 
listen  to  a  fool  who  imagines  himself  impartial,  but  to 
get  it  argued  with  reckless  bias  for  and  against."  Put 
this  on  your  bookmark  when  you  read  Shaw. 

George  Bernard  Shaw's  collection  of  opinions  is 
unique.  Perhaps  no  single  view  of  his  is  quite 
original,  but  the  combination  certainly  is.  He 
belongs  to  no  type  and  has  founded  no  school. 
This  makes  Shaw  an  exasperating  person  for  some 
people  to  read  and  causes  them  to  set  him  down 
as  frivolous  or  inconsistent.  They  find,  for  in- 
stance, from  "The  Revolutionist's  Handbook"  that 
Shaw  believes  in  eugenics  and  the  importance  of 
natural  science.  "Good!"  people  say,  "now  we 
can  classify  him."  They  read  "The  Doctor's 
Dilemma"  and  find  him  a  rabid  antivivisectionist 
and  filled  with  a  profound  contempt  for  modern 
medicine  in  general.  Or  they  find  out  that  he  is  a 
vegetarian,  a  teetotaler,  and  a  Puritan,  and  classify 
him  as  some  nonconformist  minister  of  a  pallid  and 
overconscientious  type.  When  they  read  what  he 
actually  has  to  say  about  marriage  in  "Misalli- 
ance", about  popular  religion  and  salvation  by 
money  and  gunpowder  in  "Major  Barbara",  they 
rush  to  the  opposite  conclusion  that  he  is  constitu- 
tionally an  unconstitutional  rebel  with  a  fondness 

[27] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

for  aimless  violence  such  as  appears  in  "Fanny's 
First  Play."  Reading  "The  Conversion  of  Blanco 
Bosnet"  they  discover  that  he  is  a  devout  Theist. 
Reading  the  preface  to  "Androcles"  they  find  him 
a  higher  critic.  As  a  Fabian  pamphleteer  he  is  in 
favor  of  abolishing  all  individual  property  of  a  pro- 
ductive sort  and  has  no  use  for  laissez  faire.  But 
when  it  comes  to  children  (see  "Misalliance")  there 
cannot  be  too  much  laissez  faire.  He  appears  as  an 
ultramodernist,  a  universal  cynic,  a  disillusioned 
Ibsenite,  and  a  disbeliever  in  the  very  existence 
of  progress.  (Preface  to  "Man  and  Superman".) 
He  offended  half  the  radicals  by  his  "Impossibilities 
of  Anarchism"  and  the  other  half  by  his  "Illusions 
of  Socialism",  and  the  conservatives  by  both. 

But  those  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  compare 
these  apparent  antinomies  will  find  that  the  con- 
tradictions are  not  so  great  as  they  seem  from  their 
paradoxical  and  partisan  form,  and  that  Shaw  has 
preserved  his  intellectual  consistency  to  a  remark- 
able degree. 

When  Shaw  first  burst  into  London,  a  young, 
red-haired  Irishman,  he  announced  himself  as  an 
atheist,  an  anarchist,  and  a  vegetarian,  these  heresies 
being  arranged  in  crescendo  fashion,  putting  last 
what  was  most  calculated  to  shock  the  British 

[28] 


GEORGE   BERNARD  SHAW 

public.  Now  when  we  look  back  over  his  career  we 
find  that  he  has  not  been  any  more  successful  in 
sticking  to  his  youthful  heresy  than  others  are  in 
sticking  to  their  youthful  orthodoxy.  Whether 
he  has  ever  violated  his  vegetarian  faith  by  eating 
a  beefsteak  on  the  sly  I  do  not  know,  but  he  has 
drifted  far  from  orthodox  anarchism,  for  Socialism 
is,  in  theory  at  least,  at  the  opposite  pole  from 
anarchy.  Once  when  Shaw  was  talking  Socialism 
in  Hyde  Park,  he  was  much  annoyed  by  the  anar- 
chists who  circulated  through  the  crowd,  selling 
copies  of  an  early  pamphlet  of  his  on  "The  Illu- 
sions of  Socialism."  As  for  his  atheism  he  seems 
to  have  left  that  still  farther  behind,  for  his  present 
theological  views,  if  expressed  in  less  provocative 
language,  would  pass  muster  in  many  a  pulpit 
to-day.  In  fact,  they  have  as  it  is. 

In  a  recent  letter  to  me,  Mr.  Shaw  refers  to  the 
cordial  reception  he  always  received  when  Reverend 
Reginald  Campbell  invited  him  to  occupy  the  pulpit 
of  City  Temple,1  and  adds  : 

My  greatest  and  surest  successes  as  a  public 
speaker  have  been  on  religious  subjects  to  religious 

lMr.  McCabe,  in  his  life  of  Shaw,  gives  an  interesting  account  of 
one  of  these  addresses,  that  on  "  Christian  Economics "  at  the  City 
Temple  in  1913.  But  Shaw  is  too  much  of  a  Christian  still  to  suit 
McCabe. 

[29] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

audiences ;  but  this  is  the  common  experience  of  all 
speakers.  People  are  still  more  concerned  about 
religion  than  anything  else,  and  any  reasonably 
good  preacher  can  easily  leave  the  best  political 
spellbinder  behind. 

Shaw  as  a  Socialist  differs  from  others  who  bear 
that  name.  He  is  too  intense  an  individualist  to 
be  a  good  party  man.  He  puts  no  faith  in  Marx 
as  the  prophet  of  the  millennium,  and  he  has  no 
Utopian  vision  of  his  own.  But  what  chiefly  dis- 
tinguishes him  as  a  reformer  is  his  power  of  pene- 
trating through  shams  to  fundamental  realities 
and  his  ability  to  do  original  constructive  thinking.1 
All  of  us  can  find  fault  with  the  existing  order  of 
things,  and  most  of  us  do.  But  to  point  out  just 
"what's  wrong  with  the  world"  and  to  suggest  a 
practical  line  of  improvement  is  not  so  easy.  The 
Fabian  Society  has  done  more  than  set  off  fire- 
works and  stir  up  mud.  The  Minority  Report  on 
the  reform  of  the  Poor  Law  is  a  fine  piece  of  con- 
structive statesmanship.  This  Minority  Report  was 
largely  the  work  of  the  Fabian  Society,  though  how 
much  Shaw  had  to  do  with  it  personally  I  do  not 
know.  We  now  know,  however,  that  he  was  the 

1  See  for  instance  Shaw's  book  on  "  The  Common  Sense  of  Municipal 
Trading ",  based  upon  his  experience  as  Vestryman  and  Borough 
Councillor. 

[30] 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

author  of  Fabian  Tract  Number  2  of  1884  that 
startled  the  conservative  classes  of  England,  in- 
cluding the  orthodox  Marxians.  Here  are  a  few 
of  the  "Opinions  Held  by  the  Fabians"  set  forth 
in  this  famous  tract : 

That  since  competition  among  producers  ad- 
mittedly secures  to  the  public  the  most  satisfactory 
products,  the  state  should  compete  with  all  its 
might  in  every  department  of  production. 

That  no  branch  of  industry  should  be  carried  on 
at  a  profit  by  the  central  administration. 

That  men  no  longer  need  special  political  privi- 
leges to  protect  them  against  women,  and  that  the 
sexes  should  henceforth  enjoy  equal  political  rights. 

That  the  established  government  has  no  more 
right  to  call  itself  the  State  than  the  smoke  of  Lon- 
don has  to  call  itself  the  weather. 

Shaw  also  wrote  Fabian  Tract  Number  45  on 
"The  Impossibilities  of  Anarchism",  in  which  he 
pointed  out  what  was  not  so  clear  in  1888  as  it  is 
to-day,  that  society  was  rapidly  becoming  commu- 
nistic through  the  efforts  of  those  who  were  most 
opposed  to  communism  as  a  theory : 

Most  people  will  tell  you  that  communism  is  known 
in  this  country  only  as  a  visionary  project  advocated 
by  a  handful  of  amiable  cranks.  Then  they  will 
stroll  across  a  common  bridge,  along  the  common 
embankment,  by  the  light  of  the  common  street 
lamp  shining  alike  on  the  just  and  the  unjust,  up 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

the  common  street  and  into  the  common  Trafalgar 
Square  where  on  the  smallest  hint  that  communism 
is  to  be  tolerated  for  an  instant  in  a  civilized  country, 
they  will  be  handily  bludgeoned  by  a  common  police- 
man and  hauled  off  to  the  common  gaol. 

Shaw's  latest  contribution  to  Fabian  literature, 
the  appendix  to  Pease's  "History  of  the  Fabian 
Society",  seems  to  me  one  of  the  most  important, 
for  in  the  final  paragraphs  he  points  out  clearly  a 
defect  in  our  democracy  that  is  rarely  recognized 
and  altogether  unremedied : 

Another  subject  which  has  hardly  yet  been 
touched,  and  which  also  must  begin  with  deductive 
treatment,  is  what  may  be  called  the  democratiza- 
tion of  democracy,  and  its  extension  from  mere 
negative  and  very  uncertain  check  on  tyranny  to  a 
positive  organizing  force.  No  experienced  Fabian 
believes  that  society  can  be  reconstructed  (or  rather 
constructed,  for  the  difficulty  is  that  society  is  as 
yet  only  half  removed  from  chaos)  by  men  of  the 
type  produced  by  popular  election  under  existing 
circumstances  likely  to  be  achieved  before  the  re- 
construction. The  fact  that  a  hawker  cannot  ply 
his  trade  without  a  license  whilst  a  man  may  sit  in 
Parliament  without  any  relevant  qualifications  is  a 
typical  and  significant  anomaly  which  will  certainly 
not  be  removed  by  allowing  everybody  to  be  a 
hawker  at  will.  Sooner  or  later,  unless  democracy 
is  to  be  discarded  in  a  reaction  of  disgust  such  as 
killed  it  in  ancient  Athens,  democracy  will  demand 
that  only  such  men  should  be  presented  to  its  choice 

[32] 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

as  have  proved  themselves  qualified  for  more  serious 
and  disinterested  work  than  "stoking  up"  election 
meetings  to  momentary  and  foolish  excitement. 
Without  qualified  rulers  a  Socialist  State  is  im- 
possible ;  and  it  must  not  be  forgotten  (though  the 
reminder  is  as  old  as  Plato)  that  the  qualified  men 
may  be  very  reluctant  men  instead  of  very  ambitious 
ones. 

It  is  this  doubt,  more  or  less  clearly  felt,  lest  a 
genuinely  democratic  society  will  fail  to  secure  able 
and  qualified  leaders,  that  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the 
prevalent  distrust  of  popular  government  and  causes 
many  persons  to  cling  to  antiquated  and  irrational 
institutions  like  aristocracy  and  even  monarchy. 

I  sent  Mr.  Shaw  a  copy  of  an  editorial  entitled, 
"And  There  Shall  Be  No  More  Kings",  in  The 
Independent  of  March  22,  1915,  and  the  following, 
penned  on  the  margin  of  the  clipping  in  his  careful 
handwriting,  is  his  comment  on  what  he  calls  "a 
wise  and  timely  article." 

This  war  raises  in  an  acute  form  the  whole  ques- 
tion of  republicanism  versus  German  dynasticism. 
After  the  mischief  done  by  Franz  Josef's  second 
childhood  as  displayed  in  his  launching  the  forty- 
eight-hour  ultimatum  to  Serbia  before  the  Kaiser 
could  return  from  Stockholm,  the  world  has  the 
right  —  indeed  the  duty  —  to  demand  that  mon- 
archies shall  at  least  be  subject  to  superannuation 
as  well  as  to  constitutional  limitation. 

l33l 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

All  recent  historical  research  has  shown  that  the 
position  of  a  king,  even  in  a  jealously  limited  mon- 
archy like  the  British,  makes  him  so  strong  that 
George  III,  who  was  childish  when  he  was  not  under 
restraint  as  an  admitted  lunatic,  was  uncontrollable 
by  the  strongest  body  of  statesmen  the  eighteenth 
century  produced.  It  is  undoubtedly  inconvenient 
that  the  head  of  the  state  should  be  selected  at  short 
intervals ;  but  it  does  not  follow  that  he  (or  she) 
should  be  an  unqualified  person  or  hold  office  for 
life  or  be  a  member  of  a  dynasty. 

I  may  add  that  if  the  policy  of  dismembering  the 
Central  Empires  by  making  separate  national  states 
of  Bohemia,  Poland  and  Hungary,  and  making 
Serbia  include  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  is  seriously 
put  forward,  it  would  involve  making  them  republics  ; 
for  if  they  were  kingdoms  their  thrones  would  be 
occupied  by  cousins  of  the  Hohenzollerns,  Haps- 
burgs  and  Romanoffs,  strengthening  the  German 
hegemony  instead  of  restraining  it. 

Perhaps  the  reader  will  think  that  I  am  rather 
too  presumptuous  in  professing  to  know  just  what 
Shaw  means  and  believes,  when  most  people  are 
puzzled  by  him.  So  I  should  explain  that  I  have 
the  advantage  of  a  personal  acquaintance  with 
Shaw.  I  may  say  without  boasting  —  or  at  least 
without  lying  —  that  at  one  period  of  his  life  I  was 
nearer  to  him  than  any  other  human  being.  The 
distance  between  us  was  in  fact  the  diameter  of  one 
of  those  round  tables  in  the  A.  B.  C.  restaurants, 
and  the  period  was  confined  to  the  time  it  took  to 

[34] 


GEORGE  BERNARD   SHAW 

consume  a  penny  bun  and  a  cup  of  tea,  both  being 
paid  for  by  him.  I  resorted  to  thorough  Fletcher- 
ing  for  the  purpose  of  prolonging  the  interview, 
and  I  wished  that  either  he  or  I  had  been  a  smoker. 
But  although  a  vegetarian,  he  eschews  the  weed, 
and  smoking  did  not  seem  to  be  in  accordance  with 
Fabian  tactics. 

The  occasion  was  a  recess  in  a  Fabian  Society 
conference.  I  did  not  suppose  that  anything  could 
shut  off  Socialists  in  the  midst  of  debate.  The 
theme  of  discussion  was  the  House  of  Lords,  which 
the  Fabians  unanimously  agreed  ought  to  be  abol- 
ished, though  no  two  of  them  agreed  on  the  sub- 
stitute. But  while  they  were  iconoclasts  as  to  one 
British  institution,  they  rendered  homage  to  another 
by  stopping  to  take  tea  in  the  midst  of  a  lovely  scrap. 

The  Fabian  Society  was  indirectly  the  fruit  of 
one  of  the  seeds  which  Thomas  Davidson  scattered 
in  many  lands.  You  can  track  this  peripatetic 
philosopher  through  life,  as  you  can  Johnny  Apple- 
seed,  by  the  societies  that  sprung  up  along  his  path- 
way. In  the  Adirondacks  he  founded  the  Glenmore 
School  of  Philosophy.  In  the  Jewish  quarter  of 
New  York  City  another  of  his  schools  still  thrives 
and  is  enthused  with  something  of  his  zeal  for  learn- 
ing. The  circle  of  earnest  young  men  and  women 

[35] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

whom  he  gathered  about  him  in  London  were  the 
founders  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research, 
the  Fellowship  of  the  New  Life,  and  the  Fabian 
Society.  Yet  Davidson  himself  was  neither  a 
spiritualist  nor  a  Socialist.1 

At  the  Fabian  Society  one  sees  Shaw  in  his  ele- 
ment. Every  creature,  says  Browning,  like  the 
moon, 

Boasts  two  soul-sides,  one  to  face  the  world  with, 
One  to  show  a  woman  when  he  loves  her. 

The  Fabian  Society  is  Shaw's  own  true  love,  and 
to  her  he  turns  a  different  face  than  to  the  outside 
world.  As  I  watched  him  during  the  afternoon 
—  preceding  and  following  the  brief  period  of  per- 
sonal contact  of  which  I  have  been  bragging  —  I 
was  struck  by  the  tact  and  kindliness  which  he 
showed  in  the  course  of  the  discussion.  There  was 
in  his  occasional  remarks  no  trace  of  the  caustic 
and  dogmatic  tone  which  one  gets  from  his  writings. 
He  has  been  not  so  much  the  "shining  light"  or 
"presiding  genius"  of  the  society,  as  one  of  the 

'Pease,  in  his  "History  of  the  Fabian  Society",  gives  an  interesting 
account  of  these  diverse  movements  which  in  their  inception  were 
closely  allied.  See  also  Knight's  "  Memorials  of  Thomas  Davidson : 
the  Wandering  Scholar"  and  James'  delightful  sketch,  "The  Knight- 
Errant  of  the  Intellectual  Life",  in  his  posthumous  volume  of  "Mem- 
ories and  Studies." 

[36] 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

"wheel  horses",  and  devoted  himself  diligently  to 
the  detailed  and  inconspicuous  work  of  the  organiza- 
tion. He  had  for  twenty-seven  years  served  on  the 
Executive  Committee  of  the  society  when  in  1911 
he  resigned  to  make  way  for  the  younger  generation. 
The  question  under  discussion  was,  as  I  have 
said,  that  of  the  reconstruction  of  the  House  of 
Lords.  This  was  shortly  before  the  war,  when  such 
questions  were  regarded  as  important.  Various 
plans  were  proposed  in  order  to  secure  the  election 
of  the  fittest,  when  Shaw  took  the  floor  in  defense  of 
genuine  democracy.  His  argument  ran  like  this,  as 
I  remember  it : 

Our  idea  is  that  any  670  people  is  as  good  as  any 
other  for  governing,  just  as  any  twelve  chosen  by 
chance  on  the  jury  have  our  lives  and  property  in 
their  hands. 

Now  if  I  and  Mr.  Sydney  Webb  here  were  sent 
to  the  House  of  Commons  it  should  be  with  un- 
limited opportunity  to  talk  but  not  to  vote.  To 
give  us  a  vote  would  be  to  permit  the  violation  of 
the  fundamental  principle  of  democracy  that  people 
should  never  be  governed  better  than  they  want  to 
be.  If  you  had  a  government  of  saints  and  phi- 
losophers the  people  would  be  miserable.  For  in- 
stance, I  would  want  to  stop  all  smoking  and 
meat-eating  and  liquor  drinking,  but  like  all  superior 
persons  now  I  have  to  convince  other  people  because 
I  cannot  compel  them. 

No  elected  body  can  possibly  be  representative, 

l37l 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

because  no  man  is  elected  as  a  normal  man,  but  as 
an  exceptional  one.  The  House  of  Lords  is  more 
representative  than  the  House  of  Commons,  be- 
cause a  man  in  the  House  of  Commons  is  there 
because  he  has  uncommon  abilities,  high  or  low. 
Representatives  ought  to  be,  like  jurymen,  samples 
of  the  commonalty  picked  at  random  and  compelled 
to  serve.  Their  function  is  to  explain  where  the 
shoe  pinches.  But  the  shoe  must  be  made  by  skilled 
legislators  and  statesmen,  and  these  should  be 
eligible  only  when  they  have  satisfied  a  very  high 
standard  of  qualification,  and  should  sit  without 
votes  though  with  unlimited  powers  of  explanation 
and  criticism. 

These  remarks,  delivered  in  a  musical  and  sym- 
pathetic voice  with  frequent  flashes  of  a  broad  row 
of  white  teeth,  sounded  very  different  from  the 
way  they  read  in  cold  type.  I  do  hope  the  phono- 
graph will  be  perfected  before  Shaw  dies  or  his  voice 
goes  cracked,  so  posterity  can  have  a  vocal  version 
of  his  plays  and  prefaces.  Otherwise  his  personality 
stands  little  chance  of  being  understood. 

Shaw  is  tall  and  uses  his  eyeglasses  for  gesticulat- 
ing as  an  orchestra  leader  uses  a  baton.  His  hair 
was  once  a  fiery  red,  but  is  now  tempered  into  gray. 
His  eyes  are  light  blue.  Between  his  brows  there 
are  three  perpendicular  wrinkles,  but  not  of  the 
cross  and  fretful  type.  His  face  is  long  and  pointed, 
but  he  looks  not  in  the  least  Mephistophelian  as 

[38] 


GEORGE  BERNARD   SHAW 

the  caricaturists  represent  him.  In  short,  Shaw  is 
not  so  black  as  he  is  painted  by  himself  and  others. 

It  is  not  necessary  in  this  chapter,  as  it  was  in 
the  case  of  some  of  my  "Twelve  Major  Prophets 
of  To-day",  for  me  to  give  biographical  details  at 
any  length,  for  these  are  easily  accessible.  Shaw  has 
not  been  reticent  in  talking  about  himself  in  various 
books  and  prefaces,  and  he  is  fortunate  in  having  in 
Professor  Henderson  of  the  University  of  North 
Carolina  a  biographer  of  the  Boswell  kind  — 
probably  the  best  kind  there  is.  His  big  volume 
contains  as  much  about  Shaw's  life  and  words  up 
to  the  time  it  was  published,  1911,  as  any  one  needs 
to  know.  Chesterton's  book  on  Shaw  is  an  im- 
pressionistic sketch  rather  than  a  portrait,  giving 
the  author  an  opportunity  of  saying  "what's  wrong 
with  the  world",  including  Shaw.  Other  lives  of 
Shaw  are  mentioned  in  the  appendix  of  this  chapter. 

George  Bernard  Shaw  was  born  in  Dublin,  July 
25,  1856.  His  father  was  an  Irish  gentleman, 
Protestant,  improvident  and  respectable,  a  whole- 
sale dealer  in  corn,  with  a  profound  contempt  for 
all  retail  tradesmen.  His  mother  was  a  musician, 
and  it  was  to  her  that  Mr.  Shaw  owed  his  own 
moderate  talent  and  remarkable  knowledge  of 
music.  When  he  went  to  London  at  the  age  of 

l39l 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

twenty,  with  artistic,  musical  and  literary  am- 
bitions, his  mother  practically  supported  the  family 
by  teaching  music  there.  As  Shaw  says  in  one  of 
his  autobiographical  fragments : 

I  did  not  throw  myself  into  the  struggle  for  life. 
I  threw  my  mother  into  it.  I  was  not  a  staff  to  my 
father's  old  age.  I  hung  on  to  his  coat  tails.  His 
reward  was  to  live  just  long  enough  to  read  a  review 
of  one  of  these  silly  novels  written  in  an  obscure 
journal  by  a  personal  friend  of  my  own,  prefiguring 
me  to  some  extent  as  a  considerable  author.  I 
think,  myself,  that  this  is  a  handsome  reward,  far 
better  worth  having  than  a  nice  pension  from  a 
dutiful  son  struggling  slavishly  for  his  parents' 
bread  in  some  sordid  trade. 

His  only  schooling  was  at  Dublin,  where  he  says 
he  learned  little,  and  this  is  confirmed  by  the  school 
records  which  place  him  near  the  bottom  of  his  class. 
His  opinion  of  the  sort  of  education  he  got  he  has 
expressed  in  several  places,  especially  in  the  preface 
to  "Misalliance." 

My  school  made  only  the  thinnest  pretence  of 
teaching  anything  but  Greek  and  Latin.  .  .  .  To 
this  day,  though  I  can  still  decline  a  Latin  noun  and 
repeat  some  of  the  old  paradigms  in  the  old  meaning- 
less way,  because  their  rhythm  sticks  to  me,  I  have 
never  yet  seen  a  Latin  inscription  on  a  tomb  that 
I  could  translate  throughout.  Of  Greek  I  can 
decipher  perhaps  the  greater  part  of  the  Greek 
alphabet.  In  short  I  am,  as  to  classical  education, 

[40] 


GEORGE  BERNARD   SHAW 

another  Shakespeare.  I  can  read  French  as  easily 
as  English ;  and  under  pressure  of  necessity,  I  can 
turn  to  account  some  scraps  of  German  and  a  little 
operatic  Italian ;  but  these  three  were  never  taught 
at  school.  Instead,  I  was  taught  lying,  dishonor- 
able submission  to  tyranny,  dirty  stories,  a  blas- 
phemous habit  of  treating  love  and  maternity  as 
obscene  jokes,  hopelessness,  evasion,  derision,  cow- 
ardice, and  all  the  blackguard's  shifts  by  which  the 
coward  intimidates  other  cowards. 

Why  is  it  that  British  authors  give  us  such  hor- 
rible pictures  of  their  school  days  ?  They  usually 
look  back  upon  them  as  a  most  unpleasant  and 
unprofitable  period  of  their  lives,  and  when  they 
attempt  to  eulogize  it  they  make  it  all  the  more 
shocking.  Kipling  in  "Stalky  and  Company"  re- 
veals an  even  more  detestable  state  of  affairs  than 
Dickens  does  of  "Dotheboys  Hall."  Shaw  takes 
the  American  view  of  it  and  condemns  with  horror 
the  "flagellomania"  of  the  British  schoolmaster.  It 
is  curious  to  observe  that  in  Great  Britain  the  school- 
masters have  weapons,  and  the  policemen  have 
none.  In  America  clubs  have  been  given  to  the 
police,  and  the  canes  taken  away  from  the  teachers. 
The  New  York  school-teachers  are  not  allowed  to 
deliver  even  a  casual  box  on  the  ear  or  a  friendly 
shaking,  yet  they  are  making  very  decent  citizens 
out  of  most  unpromising  material,  and  the  police- 

[41] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

men's  clubs  are  mostly  used  on  the  immigrants  who 
have  been  trained  in  the  flagellant  schools  of  Europe. 

It  is  doubtless  a  good  thing  that  Shaw  did  not 
go  through  Oxford,  but  he  should  have  had  a  course 
in  biology  under  Huxley  such  as  Wells  had.  This 
would  have  given  him  an  acquaintance  with  the 
aims  and  methods  of  modern  science  and  freed  him 
from  such  prejudice  as  he  displayed,  for  instance, 
in  "The  Doctor's  Dilemma"  and  "The  Philanderer." 

Shaw's  early  efforts  at  authorship  did  not  meet 
with  encouragement.  If  we  may  take  his  word 
for  it,  he  earned  six  pounds  in  nine  years  by  his  pen, 
and  five  of  those  came  from  writing  a  patent  medicine 
advertisement.  He  wrote  five  novels  in  five  years, 
all  at  first  rejected  by  the  book  publishers.  Four  of 
them,  "The  Unsocial  Socialist",  "The  Irrational 
Knot",  "Cashel  Byron's  Profession",  and  "Love 
Among  the  Artists"  have  since  been  reprinted 
from  the  short-lived  Socialist  periodicals  in  which 
they  originally  appeared.  The  first  novel  he  wrote, 
"Immaturity",  has  never  been  printed. 

William  Archer  sent  these  novels  to  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson,  then  trying  to  recover  his  health 
at  Saranac  Lake  in  the  Adirondacks.  Stevenson's 
letters  refer  to  them  as  "blooming  gaseous  folly", 
"horrid  fun",  "a  fever  dream  of  the  most  feverish", 

[42] 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

"I  say,  Archer,  my  God,  what  women!"  "If  Mr. 
Shaw  is  below  five  and  twenty,  let  him  go  his  path ; 
if  he  is  thirty,  he  had  best  be  told  that  he  is  a  ro- 
mantic and  pursue  romance  with  his  eyes  opened ; 
perhaps  he  knows  it ;  God  knows  !  —  my  brain  is 
softened." 

A  plan  to  relieve  struggling  authors  and  secure 
the  earlier  recognition  of  genius  by  means  of  an 
endowment  fund  and  a  system  of  substantial  prizes 
was  once  proposed  by  Upton  Sinclair,  author  of 
"The  Jungle",  who  wrote  to  a  number  of  authors, 
asking  their  opinion  of  the  scheme.  Among  those 
who  responded  were  Wells,  Bennett,  De  Morgan, 
Philpotts,  Galsworthy,  London,  and  Shaw.1  I  quote 
part  of  what  Shaw  said  about  it  because  of  its  bio- 
graphical interest : 

There  is  only  one  serious  and  effective  way  of 
helping  young  men  of  the  kind  in  view,  and  that  is 
by  providing  everybody  with  enough  leisure  in  the 
intervals  of  well-paid  and  not  excessive  work  to 
enable  them  to  write  books  in  their  spare  time  and 
pay  for  the  printing  of  them.  Nothing  else  seems 
to  me  to  be  really  hopeful.  I  myself  seem  an  ex- 
ample of  a  man  who  achieved  literary  eminence 
without  assistance ;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  certain 
remnants  of  family  property  made  all  the  difference. 
For  fully  nine  years  I  had  to  sponge  shamelessly 

1  Printed  in  The  Independent,  July  28,  1910. 
[431 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

on  my  father  and  mother;  but  even  at  that  we 
only  squeezed  through  because  my  mother's  grand- 
father had  been  a  rich  man.  In  fact,  I  was  just  the 
man  for  whom  Upton  wants  to  establish  his  fund. 
Yet  for  the  life  of  me  I  cannot  see  how  any  com- 
mittee in  the  world  could  have  given  me  a  farthing. 
All  I  had  to  show  was  five  big  novels  which  nobody 
would  publish,  and  as  the  publishers'  readers  by 
whose  advice  they  were  rejected  included  Lord 
Morley  and  George  Meredith,  it  cannot  be  said  that 
I  was  in  any  worse  hands  than  those  of  any  com- 
mittee likely  to  be  appointed.  Of  course  Sinclair 
may  say  to  this  that  if  Morley  and  Meredith,  in- 
stead of  having  to  advise  a  publisher  as  to  the  pros- 
pects of  a  business  speculation,  had  only  had  to 
consider  how  to  help  a  struggling  talent  without 
reference  to  commercial  consideration,  they  might 
have  come  to  my  rescue.  Unfortunately,  I  have  seen 
both  their  verdicts ;  and  I  can  assure  Sinclair  that 
I  produced  on  both  of  them  exactly  the  impression 
that  is  inevitably  produced  in  every  such  case :  that 
is,  that  I  was  a  young  man  with  more  cleverness 
than  was  good  for  me  and  that  what  I  needed  was 
snubbing  and  not  encouraging.  No  doubt  there 
are  talents  which  are  not  aggressive  and  do  not 
smell  of  brimstone  ;  but  these  are  precisely  the 
talents  which  are  marketable,  except,  of  course, 
in  the  case  of  the  highest  poetry,  which,  however, 
is  out  of  the  question  anyhow  as  a  means  of  liveli- 
hood. William  Morris,  when  he  was  at  the  height 
of  his  fame  as  a  poet,  long  after  the  publication  of 
his  popular  poem,  "The  Earthly  Paradise",  told  me 
that  his  income  from  his  poems  was  about  a  hundred 
a  year ;  and  I  happen  to  know  that  Robert  Brown- 
ing threatened  to  leave  the  country  because  the 

[44] 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

Income  Tax  Commissioners  assessed  him  with  a 
modest  but  wholly  imaginary  income  on  the  strength 
of  his  reputation.  Poetry  is  thus  frankly  a  matter 
of  endowment,  but  for  the  rest  I  think  a  writer's 
chance  of  being  helped  by  the  fund  would  be  in 
inverse  ratio  to  his  qualifications  as  conceived  by 
Upton  Sinclair. 

Shaw's  first  essays  in  the  field  where  he  was  to 
attain  his  greatest  success  were  as  discouraging  as  his 
efforts  at  novel  writing.  His  first  play,  "Widower's 
Houses",  dealing  with  tainted  money,  shocked  but 
did  not  attract  the  public.  His  "The  Philanderer" 
was  published  before  a  theater  would  accept  it. 
His  third  play,  "Mrs.  Warren's  Profession",  was 
prohibited  by  the  censor.  Of  the  seven  that  fol- 
lowed only  one  could  be  called  a  decided  success 
on  its  first  presentation  in  London.  But  in  book 
form,  with  attractively  written  stage  directions  and 
argumentative  prefaces,  they  found  a  host  of  readers 
who  wanted  to  see  them  in  the  theater.  "Candida" 
was  not  presented  in  London  till  1904,  nearly  ten 
years  after  it  was  written.  It  was  with  "Candida" 
that  Arnold  Daly  introduced  Shaw  to  the  theater- 
going public  of  America,  and  for  the  last  few  years 
there  have  often  been  three  Shaw  plays  running 
at  the  same  time  in  New  York. 

Shaw's  plays  were  popular  in  America  when  they 
[451 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

were  tabooed  or  pooh-poohed  in  England.  His 
"Pygmalion"  had  its  -premiere  in  the  Hofburg- 
theater  in  Vienna  instead  of  London.  I  saw  it,  or 
rather  heard  it,  since  it  is  a  phonetic  instead  of  a 
spectacular  play,  at  the  Deutsches  Theater  of  Irv- 
ing Place,  New  York,  in  March,  1914,  six  months 
before  Mrs.  Patrick  Campbell  gave  it  here  in  Eng- 
lish. In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  play  depends 
upon  variations  in  English  dialects,  it  was  given 
better  in  the  German  than  in  the  English. 

Shaw  is  in  fact  an  internationalist,  much  more 
honored  in  America,  Russia,  Germany,  France, 
Scandinavia,  and  Japan  than  in  his  own  country, 
that  is,  Ireland.  It  must  be  interesting  to  see 
"You  Never  Can  Tell"  or  "Man  and  Superman" 
on  the  Tokyo  stage.  The  Kobe  Herald  says:  "He 
appeals  to  the  Japanese  of  progressive  ideas  because 
he  prefers  potatoes,  cabbages  and  beans  to  porter- 
house steak  and  lamb  chops." 

The  reason  why  Shaw's  prefaces  read  so  well  and 
his  plays  go  better  on  the  stage  than  would  be  antici- 
pated is  because  they  are  composed  by  ear.  Since 
reading  aloud  has  gone  out  of  fashion,  there  has 
arisen  a  generation  of  young  writers  who  do  not 
realize  that  language  is  intended  to  be  spoken. 
Consequently  one  has  to  read  them  by  eye  only, 

[46] 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

switching  off  for  the  time  the  internal  auditory 
apparatus  so  as  to  avoid  their  discords  and  dull 
rhythm.  A  little  girl  who  was  trying  to  read  to 
herself  a  story  by  one  of  our  pyrotechnic  authors 
suddenly  threw  down  the  magazine  with  the  cry : 
"I  can't  read  this  any  more !  It  dazzles  my  ears." 

Shaw  is  a  musician,  and  he  writes  musical  prose. 
He  uses  shorthand  in  composing,  which  is  the  next 
best  thing  to  dictating  to  a  phonograph.  Naturally 
he  resents  the  established  spelling  of  English  which 
preserves  the  form  of  words  while  allowing  the  words 
themselves  to  decay,  thus  sacrificing  speech  to 
print.  He  has  often  argued  for  phonetic  spelling,1 
and  has  used  as  much  of  it  in  his  works  as  his  pub- 
lisher would  permit.  The  point  he  makes  in  the 
following  passage  is  undeniably  proving  true : 

All  that  the  conventional  spelling  has  done  is  to 
conceal  the  one  change  that  a  phonetic  spelling 
might  have  checked ;  namely,  the  changes  in  pro- 
nunciation, including  the  waves  of  debasement 
that  produced  the  half-rural  cockney  of  Sam  Weller 
and  the  modern  metropolitan  cockney  of  Drink- 
water  in  "Captain  Brassbound's  Conversion."  .  .  . 
Refuse  to  teach  the  Board  School  legions  your  pro- 
nunciation, and  they  will  force  theirs  on  you  by  mere 
force  of  numbers.  And  serve  you  right. 

'For  Shaw's  opinions  on  phonetics  see  "Pygmalion",  "Captain 
Brassbound's  Conversion",  and  Henderson's  biography,  p.  326. 

[471 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

Shaw's  treatment  of  the  Salvation  Army  in 
"Major  Barbara"  showed  that  he  knew  more  about 
religion  than  some  of  his  churchly  critics.  So,  too, 
his  defense  of  the  Salvation  Army  music  in  the 
London  Standard  in  1905  proved  that  he  knew  more 
about  music  than  those  who  sneered  at  the  Army 
bands.  The  Germans,  who  are  now  fond  of  analyz- 
ing the  English  character,  have  discussed  at  length 
the  question  of  why  such  an  unmusical  people 
should  have  good  music  in  the  Salvation  Army.1 

The  125-page  preface  to  "Androcles  and  the 
Lion"  is  devoted  to  a  rereading  of  the  Gospels  and 
a  rewriting  of  the  life  of  Christ.  Shaw  interprets 
the  New  Testament  like  a  higher  critic  but  applies 
it  like  an  early  Christian.  He  rejects  the  resurrecr 
tion  but  accepts  the  communism.  He  believes  in 
the  Life  Force  and  Its  Superman  as  others  do  in 
God  and  His  Messiah.  Shaw's  Superman  obviously 
belongs  to  another  genus  from  Nietzsche's  Ueber- 
mensch.  He  says  in  the  preface  to  "Misalliance": 

The  precise  formula  for  the  Superman,  ci-devant 
The  Just  Made  Perfect,  has  not  yet  been  discovered. 
Until  it  is,  every  birth  is  an  experiment  in  a  Great 
Research  which  is  being  conducted  by  the  Life 
Force  to  discover  that  formula. 

1  Von  unmusikalischen  England  und  seiner  musikalischen  Heilsarmee. 
Deutscher  Wille,  February,  1916. 

[483 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

This  eugenical  and  well  meaning,  but  far  from 
omnipotent  creator,  bears  a  strong  resemblance  to 
Bergson's  Elan  vital,  but  Shaw  was  writing  about 
the  Life  Force  long  before  Bergson  wrote  his  "Cre- 
ative Evolution."  If  there  was  any  borrowing 
about  it,  both  borrowed  from  Schopenhauer.  But 
Shaw  and  Bergson,  being  kindly  men  and  no  pessi- 
mists, have  put  a  kind  heart  into  Schopenhauer's 
ruthless  Will. 

If  I  were  to  sum  up  Shaw  in  two  words  it  would 
be  that  his  distinguishing  characteristics  are  courage 
and  kind-heartedness.  The  sight  of  suffering  and 
injustice  drives  him  mad,  and  then  he  runs  amuck, 
slashing  right  and  left,  without  much  regard  to  whom 
he  hits  and  no  regard  at  all  as  to  who  hits  him.  He 
is,  like  Swift,  a  cruel  satirist  through  excess  of 
sympathy.  If  Ibsen  is  right,  that  "the  strongest 
man  in  the  world  is  he  who  stands  most  alone", 
then  George  Bernard  Shaw  is  not  to  be  ignored. 

How  TO  READ  SHAW 

It  does  not  matter  much  which  of  Shaw's  books 
you  read  first,  for  after  reading  it,  whichever  it  is, 
you  will  probably  read  all  the  others  that  you  can 
get  your  hands  on.  If  I  must  be  more  specific  in 
recommending  a  book  to  begin  on,  I  would  suggest 
that  "Major  Barbara",  "Man  and  Superman", 
and  "Androcles  and  the  Lion"  will  give  you  an  idea 

[49] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

of  what  Shaw  is  like ;  then,  if  you  are  interested, 
you  can  pick  out  others  from  the  following  chron- 
ological list  in  which  I  have  indicated  by  a  few 
words  the  theme,  scene,  or  argument  of  the  play 
and  its  preface.  All  Shaw's  works  are  published 
by  Brentano's,  New  York,  three  plays  in  one 
volume,  or  separately. 

"Widowers'  Houses",  1892  (tainted  money). 
"The  Philanderer",  1893  (Ibsenites  and  esthetes). 
"Mrs.  Warren's  Profession",  1893  (prostitution). 
"Arms  and  the  Man",  1894  (Serbian  and  Bulgarian 

war;  anti-militarism). 
"Candida",  1894  (triangle). 
"You  Never  Can  Tell",   1895   (farce  comedy;  the 

most  popular  of  Shaw's  plays  on  the  stage). 
"The  Man  of  Destiny",   1895   (one  act,  Napoleon 

in  an  unconventional  aspect). 

"The    Devil's    Disciple",    1896    (American    revolu- 
tion). 

"Caesar  and  Cleopatra",  1898  (Egypt  Anglicized). 
"Captain    Brassbound's    Conversion",    1899    (Mo- 
rocco ;  Raisuli,  Perdicaris,  et  aL). 
"The    Admirable    Bashville    or    Constancy    Unre- 
warded",   1902   (His  novel:     "Cashel   Byron's 
Profession"   put  into  blank  verse  "because  it 
is  easier  to  write  than  prose"). 

"Man  and  Superman",  1903  (romance  topsy- 
turvey ;  marriage  by  conquest  on  the  part  of 
the  woman ;  containing  "The  Revolutionist's 
Handbook"  and  interlude  on  heaven  and  hell). 
"John  Bull's  Other  Island",  1904  (Irish  and  Eng- 
lish temperament  contrasted,  Home  Rule  ques- 
tion). 

"Passion,  Poison  and  Petrification ",  1905  (burlesque 
extravaganza). 

[50] 


GEORGE   BERNARD  SHAW 

"Major  Barbara",  1905  (Salvation  Army  and  muni- 
tion manufacture;  problem  of  poverty). 

"How  He  Lied  to  her  Husband",  1905  (parody  on 
"Candida"). 

"The  Doctor's  Dilemma",  1906  (satire  on  medical 
professor  and  attack  on  vivisection). 

"Getting  Married",  1908  (absurdities  of  marriage 
laws). 

"The  Showing-up  of  Blanco  Bosnet",  1909  (Wild 
West ;  psychology  of  conversion  ;  prohibited  by 
censor). 

"Press  Cuttings",  1909  (anti-militarism). 

"Misalliance",  1909  ("a  debate  in  one  sitting"; 
preface  on  parents  and  children). 

"The  Dark  Lady  of  the  Sonnets",  1910  (showing 
how  Shakespeare  got  his  phrases). 

"Fanny's  First  Play",  1911  (satire  of  dramatic 
critics  and  middle-class  morality). 

"Androcles  and  the  Lion",  1911  (early  Christians; 
lion  from  Oz;  disquisition  on  the  canon  of  the 
New  Testament  and  the  possibility  of  living 
Christianity). 

"Overruled",  1912  (philandering  again). 

"Pygmalion",  1913  (phonetics  and  class  prejudice, 
with  a  postscript  proving  that  you  never  can 
tell  how  a  Shaw  play  will  come  out). 

"Great  Catherine",  1913  (boisterous  farce  of 
Catherine  II ;  contrast  of  Russian  and  British 
temperament). 

"The  Music  Cure",  1914  (Marconi  scandal;  used 
as  curtain  raiser  for  Chesterton's  "Magic", 
unpublished). 

"Three  Plays  by  Brieux",  (Brentano's,  1911;  con- 
tain "Damaged  Goods"  and  other  plays  in 
which  the  French  playwright  attacks  social 


SIX  MAJOR   PROPHETS 

evils  as  vigorously  and  outspokenly  though  not 
so  wittily  as  Shaw.  They  are  translated  by  Mrs. 
Bernard  Shaw,  and  Mr.  Shaw  provides  a  preface). 

Two  farcical  plays  of  the  war,  "The  Inca  of  Peru- 
salem"  and  "Augustus  does  his  Bit",  produced  by 
the  London  Stage  Society  and  the  former  also  in 
New  York,  are  ascribed  to  Shaw  though  unacknowl- 
edged by  him. 

Of  Shaw's  critical  work  we  have  in  book  form 
"The  Perfect  Wagnerite",  1895,  and  "The  Quintes- 
sence of  Ibsen",  1890,  which  championed  two  un- 
popular causes;  "The  Sanity  of  Art",  1908,  attack- 
ing Nordau's  theory  of  the  degeneracy  of  artists ; 
and  two  volumes  of  "Dramatic  Opinions  and 
Essays",  which,  although  reviews  of  current  plays 
of  the  nineties,  retain  a  permanent  value.  Shaw's 
four  early  novels  "Cashel  Byron's  Profession", 
"An  Unsocial  Socialist",  "Love  Among  the  Artists", 
and  "The  Irrational  Knot"  are  of  less  interest  than 
his  plays. 

His  socialism  has  found  expression  in  "The  Com- 
mon Sense  of  Municipal  Trading"  and  "Fabian 
Essays  in  Socialism",  and  numerous  other  tracts 
and  articles  as  well  as  most  of  his  plays  and  prefaces. 

Shaw's  fugitive  contributions  to  journalism  are 
too  numerous  and  scattered  to  be  cited  here,  but  I 
will  mention  a  few  of  them  that  are  of  special  interest : 
"The  Case  Against  Chesterton"  (Metropolitan, 
1916);  "The  Case  for  Equality"  (Metropolitan, 
1913);  "The  German  Case  Against  Germany" 
(New  York  Times,  April  16,  1916). 

More  has  been  written  about  Shaw's  personality 
than  about  all  the  rest  of  my  "Twelve  Major 
Prophets"  put  together.  The  chief  and  authorized 
biography  is  "George  Bernard  Shaw:  His  Life  and 

[52] 


GEORGE  BERNARD   SHAW 

Work"  by  Professor  Archibald  Henderson  of  the 
University  of  North  Carolina.  (Cincinnati :  Stewart 
and  Kidd,  1911.)  It  contains  a  full  bibliography 
up  to  its  date  and  some  twenty  portraits  as  well  as 
much  inaccessible  and  unpublished  material.  Be- 
sides this  we  have : 

"George  Bernard  Shaw:  A  Critical  Study"  by 
Joseph  McCabe  (London :  Paul,  French,  Trubner, 
1914);  "Bernard  Shaw:  A  Critical  Study"  by 
Percival  P.  Howe  (Dodd,  Mead,  1915);  "George 
Bernard  Shaw"  by  G.  K.  Chesterton  (John  Lane, 
1909);  "Bernard  Shaw  as  Artist-Philosopher",  an 
exposition  of  Shavianism,  by  Renee  M.  Deacon 
(John  Lane,  1910);  "George  Bernard  Shaw:  His 
Plays"  by  H.  L.  Mencken  (Luce,  1909);  "Bernard 
Shaw"  by  Holbrook  Jackson  (Jacobs,  1907) ;  and 
"The  Innocence  of  Bernard  Shaw"  by  D.  Scott 
(Doran,  1914). 

Latest  of  all  is  "Bernard  Shaw:  The  Man  and 
the  Mask"  by  Richard  Burton,  a  study  of  his 
plays  in  chronological  order  by  the  ex-president 
of  the  Drama  League  of  America  (Henry  Holt, 
November,  1916). 

"Bernard  Shaw:  An  Epitaph"  by  John  Palmer 
(London:  Richards,  1915),  "Harlequin  or  Patriot" 
(Century).  Mr.  Palmer  comes  to  bury  Shaw,  not 
to  praise  him,  yet  gives  him  more  credit  than  many 
of  his  admirers. 

Biographical  data  and  criticism  are  also  to  be 
found  in  Archibald  Henderson's  "European  Dram- 
atists" (Stewart  and  Kidd)  and  his  "Interpreters 
of  Life  and  the  Modern  Spirit"  (Kennerley) ;  Ford 
Madox  HuefFer's  "Memories  and  Impressions"; 
R.  A.  Scott-James's  "Personality  in  Literature" 
which  also  contains  sketches  of  Wells  and  Chester- 

l53l 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

ton  (London:  Seeker,  1913);  E.  E.  Hale's  "Dram- 
atists of  To-day"  (Holt,  1911);  J.  G.  Huneker's 
"Iconoclasts"  (Scribner,  1905);  Cyril  Maude's 
"The  Haymarket  Theater";  Edward  Pease's  "His- 
tory of  the  Fabian  Society"  (London,  1916);  Her- 
man Bernstein's  "With  Master  Minds"  (Universal 
Series  Co.,  New  York,  1913);  and  "Bernard  Shaw 
et  son  ceuvre"  by  Professor  Cestre  of  the  University 
of  Bordeaux  (Mercure  de  France,  1912). 

Augustine  F.  Hamon,  who  has  translated  many 
of  Shaw's  plays  into  French,  has  published  the 
lectures  he  gave  on  them  at  the  Sorbonne  in  the 
volume  "Le  Moliere  du  XXe  siecle"  (Paris  :  Figuiere, 
1913)  which  has  been  translated  "The  Twentieth 
Century  Moliere"  (Stokes,  1915),  and  a  separate 
chapter  of  it  as  "The  Technique  of  Bernard  Shaw's 
Plays"  (London:  Daniel,  1912). 

The  following  articles  on  Shaw  are  noteworthy 
for  one  reason  or  another  : 

"Shaw  Contra  Mundum"  by  C.  B.  Chilton  in 
The  Independent,  March  8,  1906,  with  a  sharp  re- 
tort by  Shaw;  Personal  reminiscences  by  Frank 
Harris  in  Pearson's,  1916;  Controversies  of  Shaw 
with  Hilaire  Belloc  and  G.  K.  Chesterton  in  The 
New  Witness,  1916;  "Bernard  Shaw,  Musician" 
by  Florence  Boylston  Pelo  in  The  Bookman,  March, 
1916;  "Shaw  in  Portrait  and  Caricature"  by  H. 
Jackson  in  The  Idler,  1908;  "Shavian  Religion" 
by  the  Rev.  P.  Gavan  Duffy  in  The  Century,  vol.  87, 
p.  908;  "Mr.  Bernard  Shaw's  Philosophy"  by 
A.  K.  Rogers  in  Hibbert  Journal,  1910;  "George 
Bernard  Shaw"  by  D.  A.  Lord  in  Catholic  World, 
March  and  April,  1916;  "Bernard  Shaw  et  la  guerre" 
by  Christabel  Pankhurst  in  La  Revue,  1915;  "The 
Philosophy  of  Shaw"  by  Archibald  Henderson  in 

[54] 


GEORGE   BERNARD   SHAW 

Atlantic,  vol.  103,  p.  227;  "Die  Quintessenz  des 
Shawismus"  by  Helena  Richter  (Leipzig,  1913); 
"Bernard  Shaw"  by  Julius  Bab  (Berlin:  Fischer). 

The  ingenious  Allen  Upward  has  written  a  futur- 
istic satire  on  Shaw  in  the  form  of  a  play  :  "Paradise 
Found  or  the  Superman  Found  Out"  (Houghton 
Mifflin,  1915).  In  Act  I  The  Sleeper  Wakes,  a  la 
Wells,  two  hundred  years  hence,  finding  himself  in 
the  Shaw  Memorial  Hall  in  the  custody  of  the  Most 
Noble  Order  of  Hereditary  Fabians,  chief  of  whom 
are  the  Lady  Wells  and  the  Lord  Keir-Hardie.  The 
second  act  is  set  in  the  Headquarters  of  the  Anti- 
Shavian  League,  which  the  awakened  and  dis- 
illusionized Shaw  joins.  The  third  act  is  in  the 
Cabinet  of  H.  V.  M.  Maharajah  Sri  Singh  Bahadar, 
for  of  course  India  outvoted  England  as  soon  as 
universal  suffrage  was  introduced  into  the  British 
Empire. 


[551 


CHAPTER  II 

H.  G.  WELLS 

SCIENTIFIC  FUTURIST 

We  are  in  the  beginning  of  the  greatest  change  that 
humanity  has  ever  undergone.  There  is  no  shock,  no 
epoch-making  incident  —  but  then  there  is  no  shock 
at  a  cloudy  daybreak.  At  no  point  can  we  say, 
"Here  it  commences,  now;  last  minute  was  night 
and  this  is  morning."  But  insensibly  we  are  in  the 
day.  If  we  care  to  look,  we  can  foresee  growing 
knowledge,  growing  order,  and  presently  a  deliberate 
improvement  of  the  blood  and  character  of  the  race. 
And  what  we  can  see  and  imagine  gives  us  a  measure 
and  gives  us  faith  for  what  surpasses  the  imagination. 

It  is  possible  to  believe  that  all  the  past  is  but  the 
beginning  of  a  beginning,  and  that  all  that  is  and  has 
been  is  but  the  twilight  of  the  dawn.  It  is  possible 
to  believe  that  all  that  the  human  mind  has  ever  ac- 
complished is  but  the  dream  before  the  awakening. 
We  cannot  see,  there  is  no  need  for  us  to  see,  what 
this  world  will  be  like  when  the  day  has  fully  come. 
We  are  creatures  of  the  twilight.  But  it  is  out  of  our 
race  and  lineage  that  minds  will  spring  that  will  reach 
back  to  us  in  our  littleness  to  know  us  better  than  we 
know  ourselves,  and  that  will  reach  forward  fearlessly 
to  comprehend  this  future  that  defeats  our  eyes. 

[56] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

All  this  world  is  heavy  with  the  promise  of  greater 
things,  and  a  day  will  come,  one  day  in  the  unending 
succession  of  days,  when  beings,  beings  who  are  now 
latent  in  our  thoughts  and  hidden  in  our  loins,  shall 
stand  upon  this  earth  as  one  stands  upon  a  footstool, 
and  shall  laugh  and  reach  out  their  hands  amid  the 
stars.  —  "The  Discovery  of  the  Future"  (1902). 

Is  Wells  also  among  the  prophets  ?  Surely,  and 
none  with  better  right,  even  though  we  use  the 
word  "prophet"  in  its  narrowest  and  most  ordinary 
sense  as  one  who  foretells  the  future.  He  has  fore- 
told many  futures  for  us,  some  utterly  abhorrent, 
others  more  or  less  attractive.  If  we  shudder  at  the 
thought  of  humanity  on  a  freezing  world  fighting  a 
losing  battle  with  gigantic  crustaceans  as  in  "The 
Time  Machine",  or  being  suffocated  on  a  blazing 
world  as  in  "The  Star",  or  being  crushed  under 
the  tyranny  of  an  omnipotent  trust  as  in  "When 
the  Sleeper  Wakes"  -if  none  of  these  please  us, 
then  we  have  the  option  of  a  businesslike  and  effi- 
cient organization  of  society  under  the  domination 
of  the  engineer  as  in  "Anticipations",  or  a  socialistic 
state  under  the  beneficent  sway  of  the  Samurai  as 
in  "A  Modern  Utopia,"  or  an  instantaneous  ameliora- 
tion of  human  nature  as  "  In  the  Days  of  the  Comet." 
In  thus  presenting  various  solutions  to  the  world 
problem  Wells  is  not  inconsistent.  Every  com- 

[57] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

plicated  equation  has  several  roots,  some  of  them 
imaginary.  In  solving  a  physical  problem  the 
scientist  begins  by  disentangling  the  forces  involved 
and  then,  taking  them  one  at  a  time,  calculates 
what  would  be  the  effect  if  the  other  forces  did 
not  act.  So  Wells  is  applying  the  scientific  method 
to  sociology  when  he  attempts  to  isolate  social  forces 
and  deal  with  them  singly.  If  nothing  intervenes 
to  divert  it,  says  the  hydraulic  engineer,  the  water  of 
this  mountain  stream  will  develop  such  a  momentum 
on  reaching  the  valley.  If  no  limitations  are  placed 
upon  the  consolidation  of  capital,  says  Mr.  Wells, 
we  may  have  a  handful  of  directors  ruling  the  world, 
as' depicted  in  "When  the  Sleeper  Wakes." 

In  its  power  to  forecast  the  future  science  finds 
both  its  validation  and  justification.  By  this  alone 
it  tests  its  conclusions  and  demonstrates  its  use- 
fulness. In  fact,  the  sole  object  of  science  is  proph- 
ecy, as  Ostwald  and  Poincare  make  plain.  The 
mind  of  the  scientific  man  is  directed  forward  and 
he  has  no  use  for  history  except  as  it  gives  him  data 
by  which  to  draw  a  curve  that  he  may  project  into 
the  future.  It  is,  therefore,  not  a  chance  direction 
of  his  fancy  that  so  many  of  Wells's  books,  both 
romances  and  studies,  deal  with  the  future.  It  is 
the  natural  result  of  his  scientific  training,  which 

[58] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

not  only  led  him  to  a  rich  unworked  field  of  fictional 
motives,  but  made  him  consider  the  problems  of 
life  from  a  novel  and  very  illuminative  point  of 
view.  He  gave  definite  expression  to  this  philosophy 
in  a  remarkable  address  on  "The  Discovery  of  the 
Future",  delivered  at  the  Royal  Institution  of  Lon- 
don, January  24,  1902.  Here  he  shows  that  there 
is  a  growing  tendency  in  modern  times  to  shift  the 
center  of  gravity  from  the  past  to  the  future  and 
to  determine  the  moral  value  of  an  act  by  its  con- 
sequences rather  than  by  its  relation  to  some  prece- 
dent. The  justification  of  a  war,  for  instance,  may 
either  be  by  reference  to  the  past  or  to  the  future ; 
that  is,  it  may  be  based  either  upon  some  supposi- 
titious claim  and  violated  treaty,  or  upon  the  as- 
sumed advantage  to  one  or  both  parties.  This 
idea,  that  in  the  moral  evaluation  of  an  act  its 
results  should  be  taken  into  consideration,  has  been 
popularly  ascribed  to  the  Jesuits,  but  since  they 
have  repeatedly  and  indignantly  denied  that  it 
ever  formed  part  of  their  teaching,  it  is  questionable 
whether  they  could  claim  it  now  when  it  is  becom- 
ing fashionable.  At  any  rate,  it  is  interesting  to 
note  that  Wells  gave  very  clear  expression  to  this 
pragmatic  principle  five  years  before  the  publication 
of  "Pragmatism"  by  James. 

159] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

I  hope  that  Mr.  Wells  will  work  out  in  detail  his 
theory  of  prevision  as  a  motive  for  morality.  We 
cannot  have  too  many  such  motives,  and  it  is  quite 
possible  that  this  factor  has  not  been  fully  recog- 
nized in  our  ethical  systems,  though  I  have  no 
doubt  that,  as  is  usually  the  case  with  discoveries, 
especially  in  ethics,  the  theory  is  not  quite  so  novel 
as  it  seems  to  him.  In  the  meantime,  I  would 
call  his  attention  to  two  weak  points  in  argument,  as 
he  has  sketched  it  in  this  lecture.  He  gives  as  an 
example  of  the  two  ways  of  looking  at  a  problem 
the  old  question  of  whether  a  bad  promise  is  better 
broken  or  kept.  The  "legal  mind"  would  regard 
the  promise  as  inviolable;  the  "creative  mind" 
would  say  that  in  view  of  future  consequences  it 
should  be  disregarded.  But  I  would  suggest  that,  if 
morality  is,  as  he  defines  it,  "an  overriding  of  im- 
mediate and  personal  considerations  out  of  regard 
to  something  to  be  attained  in  the  future",  the 
one  who  viewed  the  act  most  clearly  in  the  light 
of  the  future  would  keep  the  promise  even  at  the 
cost  of  some  suffering  to  himself  and  others  rather 
than  bring  the  lack  of  confidence  which  results 
from  a  violated  oath. 

I  would  also  point  out  that  the  followers  of  dogma 
are  not  to  be  classed  so  positively  with  those  who 

[60] 


H.  G.   WELLS 

look  only  on  the  past.  Certainly  those  whose 
morality  is  based  on  the  hope  of  heaven  and  the 
fear  of  hell  —  and  this  is  too  numerous  a  class  to 
be  ignored  —  are  as  truly  guided  by  their  ideas 
of  the  future  as  are  those  who  are  working  for  the 
prosperity  of  the  "Beyond-Man"  some  thousand 
years  hence.  Jonathan  Edwards's  first  resolution 
was  typical.  It  reads  : 

I.  Resolved,  That  I  will  do  whatsoever  I  think  to 
be  most  to  God's  glory  and  my  own  good,  profit  and 
pleasure,  ON  THE  WHOLE  ;  without  any  consideration 
of  the  time,  whether  now,  or  never  so  many  myriads 
of  ages  hence ;  to  do  whatever  I  think  to  be  my  duty, 
and  most  for  the  good  and  advantage  of  mankind  in 
general  —  whatever  difficulties  I  meet  with,  how 
many  and  how  great  soever. 

The  highest  morality  is  attained,  in  my  opinion, 
by  the  class  which  Mr.  Wells  despises  —  namely, 
those  who  disregard  neither  causes  nor  effects,  but 
consider  every  act  in  the  light  of  both  the  past  and 
the  future.  For  this  reason  we  are  grateful  to  Mr. 
Wells  for  the  light  he  is  giving  us  on  the  future  by 
his  efforts  in  scientific  prophecy. 

Wells  defines  two  divergent  types  of  mind  by 
the  relative  importance  they  attach  to  things  past 
or  things  to  come.  The  former  type  he  calls  the 
legal  or  submissive  mind,  "because  the  business, 

[61] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

the  practice  and  the  training  of  a  lawyer  dispose 
him  toward  it ;  he  of  all  men  must  most  constantly 
refer  to  the  law  made,  the  right  established,  the 
precedent  set,  and  most  consistently  ignore  or  con- 
demn the  thing  that  is  only  seeking  to  establish  it- 
self." In  opposition  to  this  is  "the  legislative, 
creative,  organizing,  masterful  type",  which  is 
perpetually  attacking  and  altering  the  established 
order  of  things;  it  is  constructive  and  "interprets 
the  present  and  gives  value  to  this  or  that  entirely 
in  relation  to  things  designed  or  foreseen."  The 
use  of  the  term  "legislative"  for  this  latter  type  is 
confusing,  at  least  to  an  American,  because  un- 
fortunately most  of  our  legislators  are  lawyers  and 
have  minds  of  the  legal  or  conventional  type. 
"Scientific"  would  be  a  better  term  than  "legis- 
lative", because  most  of  our  real  revolutions  in 
thought  and  industry  originate  in  the  laboratory. 

In  his  "Modern  Utopia"  Wells  introduces  a 
more  complete  classification  of  mankind  into  (i)  the 
Poietic,  that  is,  the  creative  and  original  genius, 
often  erratic  or  abnormal ;  (2)  the  Kinetic,  that 
is,  the  efficient,  energetic,  "business  man"  type; 
(3)  the  Dull,  "the  people  who  never  seem  to  learn 
thoroughly  or  hear  distinctly  or  think  clearly", 
and  (4)  the  Base,  those  deficient  in  moral  sense. 

[62] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

The  first  two  categories  of  Wells,  the  Poietic  and 
Kinetic,  correspond  roughly  to  Ostwald's  Roman- 
ticist and  Classicist  types  of  scientific  men.1  I 
have  laid  stress  upon  Wells's  point  of  view  and 
classification  of  temperaments  because  it  seems  to 
me  that  it  gives  the  clue  to  his  literary  work.  This 
is  voluminous  and  remarkably  varied,  yet  through 
all  its  forms  can  be  traced  certain  simple  leading 
motives.  Indeed  I  am  unable  to  resist  the  tempta- 
tion to  formulate  his  favorite  theme  as  :  The  reaction 
of  society  against  a  disturbing  force. 

This  certainly  is  the  basic  idea  of  much  of  his 
work  and  most  of  the  best  of  it.  He  hit  upon  it 
early  and  he  has  repeated  it  in  endless  variations 
since.  The  disturbing  force  may  be  an  individual 
of  the  creative  or  poietic  type,  an  overpowering 
passion,  a  new  idea,  a  social  organization  or  a 
material  change  in  the  conditions  of  life.  Whatever 
it  may  be,  the  natural  inertia  of  society  causes  it 
to  resist  the  foreign  influence,  to  enforce  compliance 
upon  the  aberrant  individual,  or  to  meet  the  new 
conditions  by  as  little  readjustment  as  possible. 
Usually  the  social  organism  is  successful  in  over- 
powering the  intruder  or  rebel,  and  on  the  whole 
we  must  .admit  that  this  is  advantageous,  even 

1  See  "Major  Prophets  of  To-day",  p.  232. 
[63] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

though  it  sometimes  does  involve  the  sacrifice  of 
genius  and  the  retardation  of  progress.  Certainly 
no  one  is  good  enough  or  wise  enough  to  be  trusted 
with  irresponsible  power. 

This  is  the  lesson  of  "The  Invisible  Man."  We 
all  have  been  struck,  probably,  by  a  thought  of 
the  advantages  which  personal  invisibility  would 
confer.  It  is  one  of  the  most  valued  of  fairy  gifts. 
But  perhaps  only  Wells  has  thought  of  the  disad- 
vantages of  invisibility,  how  demoralizing  such  a 
condition  would  be  to  the  individual,  and  yet  how 
powerless  he  would  be  against  the  mass  of  ordinary 
people.  Assuming  that  a  man  had  discovered  a 
way  to  become  invisible  by  altering  the  refractive 
power  of  his  body,  as  broken  glass  becomes  invisible 
in  water,  in  what  situation  would  he  be  ?  He 
would  be  naked,  of  course,  and  he  could  not  carry 
anything  in  his  hands  or  eat  in  public.  If  it  were 
winter  he  would  leave  tracks  and  would  catch 
cold  and  sneeze.  So  the  invisible  man  who  starts 
to  rob  and  murder  at  his  own  sweet  will  is  soon 
run  down  by  boys,  dogs,  and  villagers  as  ignomini- 
ously  as  any  common  thief. 

A  more  artistic  expression  to  the  same  theme  is 
given  in  "The  Country  of  the  Blind."  A  young 
man  tumbled  into  an  isolated  valley  of  the  Andes 

[64] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

where  lived  a  community  which  had  through  some 
hereditary  disease  lost  many  generations  ago  the 
power  of  sight.  The  stranger  first  thought  of  the 
proverb,  "In  the  country  of  the  blind  the  one- 
eyed  man  is  king",  but  when  he  tried  to  demon- 
strate his  superiority  he  found  it  impossible.  His 
talk  about  "seeing"  the  natives  held  to  be  the 
ravings  of  a  madman  and  his  clumsiness  in  their 
dark  houses  as  proof  of  defective  senses.  He  was 
as  much  at  a  disadvantage  in  a  community  where 
everything  is  adapted  to  the  sightless  as  a  blind 
man  is  in  ours.  He  falls  in  love  with  a  girl,  but 
before  he  is  allowed  to  marry  her  he  must  be  cured 
of  his  hallucinations ;  a  simple  surgical  operation, 
the  removal  of  the  two  irritable  bodies  protuberant 
from  his  brain,  will  restore  him  to  normality,  say 
the  blind  surgeons,  and  make  a  sane  and  useful 
citizen  of  him.  The  entreaties  of  his  lady  love  are 
added  to  the  coercion  of  public  opinion  to  induce 
him  to  consent.  The  exceptional  man  is  beaten, 
he  must  either  conform  to  the  community  or  leave 
it.  No  matter  how  the  story  ends.  The  true 
novelist  and  dramatist,  like  the  true  mathematician, 
finds  his  satisfaction  in  correctly  stating  a  problem, 
not  in  working  it  out. 

The   theme  of  these   parables,   the   comparative 
[65] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

powerlessness  of  the  individual,  however  exception- 
ally endowed,  against  the  coercive  force  of  environ- 
ment, Wells  has  developed  at  length  in  his  novels; 
in  "The  New  Machiavelli",  for  instance,  where  a 
statesman  at  the  height  of  his  public  usefulness 
is  overthrown  and  banished  because  he  had  suc- 
cumbed to  selfish  passion  and  violated  the  moral 
code.  Parnell  is  popularly  supposed  to  be  the 
model  for  this  character  rather  more  than  the 
original  Machiavelli,  but  it  is,  unfortunately,  a 
type  not  rare  either  in  history  or  fiction.  Indeed 
this  may  be  called  the  common  plot  of  tragedy 
from  the  time  when  it  began  to  be  written,  the 
vulnerable  heel  of  Achilles,  the  little  defect  of 
character  or  ability  that  precipitates  the  catastrophe. 
In  Wells's  hands  this  motive  takes  most  fantastic 
forms.  There  was,  for  example,  "The  Man  Who 
Could  Work  Miracles " ;  "  his  name  was  George 
McWrhirter  Fotheringay  —  not  the  sort  of  name 
by  any  means  to  lead  to  any  expectation  of  miracles 
—  and  he  was  clerk  at  Gomshott's" ;  "he  was  a 
little  man  and  had  eyes  of  a  hot  brown,  very  erect 
red  hair,  a  mustache  with  ends  he  twisted  up,  and 
freckles."  This  unpromising  looking  individual, 
and  he  was  a  blatant  skeptic,  too,  becomes  sud- 
denly possessed  of  the  power  to  make  anything 

[66] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

happen  that  he  wills,  but  he  finds  the  use  of  this 
mysterious  gift  by  no  means  to  his  advantage. 
It  brings  him  and  others  into  all  sorts  of  trouble, 
and  only  his  renunciation  of  it  saves  the  world  from 
destruction.  Mr.  Fotheringay  lived  in  Church 
Row,  and  since  Mr.  Wells  lives  in  the  same  street 
he  perhaps  knew  him  personally. 

In  "The  War  of  Worlds"  the  earth  is  invaded 
by  Martians,  who  are  not  in  the  least  like  those  of 
Du  Maurier  or  Professor  Flournoy,  but  octopus- 
like  creatures  as  far  above  mankind  in  intellect 
and  command  of  machinery  as  we  are  above  the 
animals,  supermen  surpassing  the  imagination  of 
Nietzsche.  They  stride  over  the  earth  in  machines 
of  impregnable  armor  and  devastate  town  and 
country  with  searchlights  projecting  rays  more 
destructive  than  those  of  radium  and  much  like 
Bulwer-Lytton's  "vril."  They  feed  on  human 
blood  and,  if  humanity  is  not  to  perish  or  become 
as  sheep  to  these  invaders,  men  and  women  must 
take  to  sewers  and  such  like  hiding  places  and  wage 
incessant  warfare  against  overwhelming  odds. 

In  a  passage  that  is  to  me  the  most  gripping  of 
anything  Wells  has  written,  a  few  unconquerable 
spirits  plan  the  life  that  mankind  must  lead  under 
these  terrible  conditions,  but  they  are  relieved  from 

[67] 


SIX  MAJOR   PROPHETS 

the  necessity  of  putting  it  into  execution  by  the 
interposition  of  an  unexpected  ally  in  the  form 
of  the  most  minute  of  creatures,  the  microbe.  The 
men  from  Mars,  not  being  immune  to  terrestrial 
diseases,  are  annihilated  by  one  of  them. 

The  formula  remains  the  same  although  condi- 
tions are  reversed  in  "The  First  Men  in  the  Moon", 
for  men,  being  naturally  larger  than  the  lunar 
people,  might  be  supposed  to  dominate  them,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  the  ant-like  inhabitants  of  the 
moon  conquer  the  earthly  invaders. 

In  "The  Wonderful  Visit"  a  curate  goes  out 
hunting  for  rare  birds  and  shoots  an  angel  on  the 
wing.  But  the  heavenly  visitant  does  not  play  the 
role  of  the  angel  in  Jerome's  "The  Passing  of  the 
Third  Floor  Back"  and  transform  the  character  of 
all  he  meets.  Wells's  angel  does  not  fit  into  the 
parish  life,  and  everybody  is  relieved  when  he  dis- 
appears. The  same  idea,  the  reaction  of  conven- 
tional society  toward  the  unusual,  is  illustrated  by 
"The  Sea-Lady",  where,  instead  of  an  angel  from 
the  sky,  we  have  a  mermaid  from  the  ocean  brought 
into  the  circle  of  a  summer  resort.  Mr.  Wells 
has  said  that  by  the  sea-lady  he  meant  to  symbolize 
"love  as  a  disturbing  passion",  the  same  theme 
as  "The  New  Machiavelli."  It  may  be  taken  to 

[68] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

mean  that,  of  course,  or  half  a  dozen  other  things 
as  well.  We  are  at  liberty  to  disregard  Mr.  Wells's 
interpretation  if  we  like.  It  is  not  an  author's 
business  to  explain  what  his  works  mean.  In  fact 
it  seems  a  bit  officious  and  impertinent  for  him  to 
attempt  it.  How  little  would  there  be  left  of  the 
great  literature  of  the  world  if  it  were  reduced  to 
what  the  author  literally  and  consciously  had  in 
mind  when  he  wrote.  The  value  of  any  work  of 
art  depends  upon  what  may  be  got  out  of  it,  not 
what  was  put  into  it. 

"The  Food  of  the  Gods"  is  a  case  in  point.  These 
children  who  are  fed  on  " boom-food"  (presumably 
an  extract  from  the  pituitary  body  of  the  brain) 
and  grow  to  gianthood  may  be  taken  to  represent 
any  new  transforming  force.  If  the  story  was 
conceived  in  Wells's  earlier  days  he  may  have 
meant  by  it  the  power  of  science.  If  in  the  days 
of  "Anticipations"  he  more  likely  had  in  mind 
efficiency  or  "scientific  management."  If  when  he 
was  a  member  of  the  Fabian  Society  it  doubtless 
stood  for  Socialism.  Such  questions  may  well  be 
left  to  the  future  biographer  who  will  take  an  in- 
terest in  tracing  out  the  genesis  of  his  thought. 
Really  it  makes  no  difference  to  the  reader,  for  the 
essential  thing  is  to  note  that  the  reaction  of  society 

[69] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

toward  any  unprecedented  factor  is  the  same.  That 
in  various  parts  of  the  country  a  new  and  gigantic 
race  was  growing  up  aroused  at  first  a  certain  sen- 
sational interest,  but  this  soon  died  down.  People 
became  accustomed  to  seeing  the  giant  boys  and 
girls  and  even  set  them  at  work.  Later  as  it  was 
realized  that  the  giants  could  not  be  adapted  to 
the  existing  social  structure,  but  meant  its  over- 
throw, the  government  attempted  to  segregate 
and  limit  them,  and  at  length,  finding  no  com- 
promise possible,  determined  to  exterminate  them. 
This  brings  about  a  duel  to  the  death  between  the 
little  race  and  the  big,  and  there  could  be  no  doubt 
as  to  the  issue. 
Chesterton  says  * : 

"The  Food  of  the  Gods"  is  the  tale  of  "Jack  the 
Giant-Killer"  told  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
giant.  This  has  not,  I  think,  been  done  before  in 
literature ;  but  I  have  little  doubt  that  the  psycho- 
logical substance  of  it  existed  in  fact.  I  have  little 
doubt  that  the  giant  whom  Jack  killed  did  regard 
himself  as  the  Superman.  It  is  likely  enough  that  he 
considered  Jack  a  narrow  and  parochial  person  who 
wished  to  frustrate  a  great  forward  movement  of  the 
life-force.  If  (as  not  infrequently  was  the  case)  he 
happened  to  have  two  heads,  he  would  point  out  the 
elementary  maxim  which  declares  them  to  be  better 
than  one.  He  would  enlarge  on  the  subtle  modernity 

1  "Heretics",  by  G.  K.  Chesterton,  p.  85. 
[70] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

of  such  an  equipment,  enabling  a  giant  to  look  at  a 
subject  from  two  points  of  view,  or  to  correct  him- 
self with  promptitude.  But  Jack  was  the  champion 
of  the  enduring  human  standards,  of  the  principle  of 
one  man  one  head,  and  one  man  one  conscience,  of 
the  single  head  and  the  single  heart  and  the  single 
eye.  Jack  was  quite  unimpressed  by  the  question  of 
whether  the  giant  was  a  particularly  gigantic  giant. 
All  he  wished  to  know  was  whether  he  was  a  good 
giant  —  that  is,  a  giant  who  was  any  good  to  us. 
What  were  the  giant's  religious  views ;  what  his 
views  on  politics  and  the  duties  of  the  citizen  ?  Was 
he  fond  of  children  —  or  fond  of  them  only  in  a  dark 
and  sinister  sense  ?  To  use  a  fine  phrase  for  emo- 
tional sanity,  was  his  heart  in  the  right  place  ?  Jack 
had  sometimes  to  cut  him  up  with  a  sword  in  order 
to  find  out. 

Nothing  could  better  illustrate  the  difference  in 
standpoint  between  Chesterton  and  Wells  than 
this.  The  sympathies  of  Wells  are  undoubtedly 
with  the  giants,  with  the  new  forces  that  aim  to 
transform  the  world,  though  he  is  not  always  con- 
fident of  their  ultimate  triumph.  Being  a  man  of 
scientific  training,  he  is  a  determinist  but  not  a 
fatalist.  All  his  prophecies  are  conditional.  If  the 
gulf  between  industrial  and  parasitic  classes  keeps 
on  widening  there  will  eventually  be  two  races, 
and  the  former  will  be  master;  this  is  the  lesson 
of  "The  Time  Machine."  If  the  engineer  and 
business  manager  get  control  we  shall  have  the 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

well  ordered  prosperity  of  "Anticipations."  If 
Socialism  prevails  we  shall  have  the  Great  State. 
His  stories  of  the  future  are  about  equally  divided 
between  optimistic  and  pessimistic  prophecy,  be- 
tween allurements  and  warnings. 

"In  the  Days  of  the  Comet"1  he  uses  again 
the  mechanism  of  the  most  artistic  of  his  earlier 
short  stories,  "The  Star",  which  is  a  little  gem 
in  its  way  without  a  superfluous  word  or  a  false 
tone.  But  those  were  the  days  when  Mr.  Wells 
was  writing  for  pleasure ;  now  he  writes  for  a  pur- 
pose, so  the  two  stories  resemble  each  other  only 
in  their  common  theme,  the  swishing  across  the 
earth  of  a  comet's  tail.  In  the  former  tale  the 
event  was  viewed  by  a  man  in  Mars  who  reported 
to  his  fellow  scientists  that  the  earth  was  little 
damaged,  for  the  destruction  of  all  life  on  it  was 
too  insignificant  an  event  to  be  noticed  at  that 
distance.  In  the  present  book  the  earth  was  de- 
cidedly benefited,  and  the  history  is  told  by  a  man 
more  foreign  to  us  than  the  Martian,  for  he  is  a 
citizen  of  the  new  civilization  that  followed  the 
"Great  Change."  A  wonderful  transformation  had 
been  effected  in  our  atmosphere  by  its  mingling 

»  "In  the  Days  of  the  Comet",  by  H.  G.  Wells.  New  York:  The 
Century  Company. 

[72] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

with  the  cometary  gases.  The  inert  nitrogen  of 
the  air  had  been  changed  to  some  life-giving,  clarify- 
ing, and  stimulating  gas ;  it  would  be  unfair  to  the 
author  to  infer  that  this  was  nitrous  oxid,  more 
familiarly  known  as  "laughing  gas."  Under  its 
influence  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth  perceive  the 
evils  of  our  present  regime  and  realize  that  they 
are  mostly  avoidable  if  everybody  had  good  inten- 
tions and  good  sense.  .  As  an  argument  for  Socialism 
it  is  a  very  weak  one,  for  it  gives  away  the  case  by 
conceding,  at  the  outset,  the  main  objection  of  the 
conservative,  that  you  will  have  to  change  human 
nature  before  Socialism  becomes  possible.  Of  course, 
if  all  men  were  well-meaning  and  wise  Socialism 
would  be  practical.  It  would  also  be  unnecessary, 
because  any  social  machinery,  or,  indeed,  none  at 
all,  would  work  well  enough  under  these  conditions. 
The  difficulty  is  to  devise  any  changes  that  will 
make  it  work  better  with  people  as  they  are.  That 
better  people  than  we  would  be  able  to  make  for 
themselves  better  ways  of  living,  nobody  denies. 
That  social  institutions  influence  the  character  of 
individuals,  and  that  individuals  influence  the 
character  of  institutions,  are  correlative  truths, 
but  it  is  difficult  for  most  people  to  keep  them 
both  in  mind.  Mr.  Wells's  collectivist  conversion 

l73l 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

by  a  "green  gas"  is  much  the  same  thing  as  individ- 
ualist conversion  by  religious  influence,  but  we 
know  of  instances  of  the  latter,  while  the  former 
is  purely  hypothetical. 

But,  of  course,  the  object  of  the  book  is  not  to 
show  how  Socialism  can  come  about,  but  to  assist 
in  making  it  come  about  by  acting  on  readers  as  a 
dose  of  the  "green  gas"  and  opening  our  eyes  to 
the  vulgarity,  silliness,  squalor,  and  wastefulness 
of  our  daily  life.  Mr.  Wells  is  an  artist  by  nature 
and  a  scientist  by  training,  and  ugliness  and  stupid- 
ity worry  him  more  than  wickedness  and  injustice. 
In  fact,  he  would  probably  class  all  the  evils  of 
civilization  under  stupidity.  But  long  ago  it  was 
said  that  against  stupidity  even  the  gods  fight  in 
vain,  and  it  remains  to  be  seen  whether  Socialists 
will  succeed  better. 

The  most  attractive  pages  of  the  book  to  me  are 
those  that  describe  "the  festival  of  the  rubbish 
burnings",  though  Wells  does  not  improve  upon 
Washington  Irving' s  treatment  of  the  same  theme. 
There  are  several  things  owned  by  our  neighbors, 
even  by  relatives,  which  we  should  like  to  cast 
upon  the  flames.  But  we  are  afraid  to  light  the 
bonfire  lest  the  neighbors  should  burn  up  some 
of  our  treasures.  That  war  is  also  an  example  of 

[74] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

human  stupidity,  we  agree,  but  just  how  to  prevent 
it  altogether  until  the  rest  of  the  world  comes  to 
our  opinion,  we  do  not  understand.  It  takes  two 
to  stop  a  quarrel.  The  fleets  of  England  and  Ger- 
many were  engaged  in  bombarding  each  other 
when  the  renovating  comet  struck  the  earth,  but 
as  soon  as  the  eyes  of  the  combatants  and  the 
"statesmen"  who  had  instigated  it  were  opened, 
and  their  anger  quenched,  it  seemed  incredible  to 
them  that  they  should  have  sought  to  kill  each 
other  for  such  trivial  and  remote  causes.  Jules 
Verne  has  a  similar  scene  in  "Dr.  Ox's  Experi- 
ment", but  in  that  case  the  gas  acts  in  the  opposite 
way  to  excite  the  sluggish  inhabitants  of  a  peaceful 
Flemish  village  to  make  war  against  the  neighbor- 
ing village,  and  as  soon  as  they  are  out  of  the  con- 
taminated atmosphere  they  look  in  bewilderment 
at  the  deadly  weapons  in  their  hands.  Eight 
years  later  Wells's  worst  forebodings  came  to  pass, 
but  no  "green  gas"  came  to  clear  the  air  of  hate. 

But  the  particular  passion  that  Wells  would 
sweep  away  by  the  breath  of  his  comet  is  one  which, 
in  the  opinion  of  most  people,  is  necessary  to  the 
maintenance  of  morality,  that  is,  jealousy.  The 
young  English  workingman  who  tells  the  story  is 
infuriated  against  the  young  aristocrat  who  had 

[75] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

seduced  his  sweetheart  and  is  pursuing  them  with 
a  revolver  when  the  "Great  Change"  comes.  Then 
he  is  content  to  share  her  affections  with  his  former 
rival,  and  they  all  lived  together  happily  ever  after. 
In  his  works  on  Socialism  Wells  gives  his  reasons 
for  thinking  that,  whether  we  wish  it  or  not,  the 
family  is  disintegrating,  and  that  only  under  Social- 
ism, which  will  insure  a  support  sufficient  for  in- 
dependence to  both  men  and  women,  can  better 
relations  be  established. 

We  might  have  known  that  as  soon  as  science 
discovered  the  new  world  inside  the  atom  the 
story-writer  would  follow  close  behind.  We  might 
also  have  known  that  H.  G.  Wells  would  be  the 
first  to  exploit  this  new  territory  annexed  to  human 
knowledge,  for  he  has  always  kept  an  eye  on  scien- 
tific progress  even  while  seemingly  engrossed  in 
British  politics  and  marriage  problems.  So  he 
wrote  a  romance  of  the  atom,  "The  World  Set 
Free",  describing  the  Great  War  months  before 
it  happened. 

Our  sleepy  earth  has  been  caught  napping  by 
every  great  change  that  has  thus  far  reached  human- 
ity, and  probably  Mr.  Wells  is  quite  right  in  sup- 
posing that  a  sudden  release  of  the  vast  stores  of 
energy  hidden  in  the  atom  would  find  civilization 

[76] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

as  unprepared  for  the  social,  economic,  political,  and 
intellectual  results  of  the  new  energies  in  industry 
as  it  was  for  the  effects  of  the  great  industrial  revolu- 
tion which  followed  the  introduction  of  steam  power 
not  much  more  than  a  century  ago. 

But  Mr.  Wells  has  the  alertest  literary  imagina- 
tion of  any  modern  writer;  the  significance  of  the 
new  physics  has  not  escaped  him  as  it  has  the  com- 
mon run  of  novelists  intently  searching  for  good 
plots  and  neglecting  entirely  the  rich  ore  awaiting 
any  writer  who  happened  to  have  an  elementary 
knowledge  of  modern  science.  Many  short  stories 
and  one  or  two  novels  have  introduced  more  or  less 
accurate  accounts  of  radium  as  a  side-show  to  a 
love  story  or  an  incident  in  a  detective  tale.  But 
it  required  the  boldness  of  Mr.  Wells  to  throw  over- 
board entirely  the  conventional  novel  plot  and 
make  a  hero  of  the  cosmic  energies.  "The  World 
Set  Free"  resembles  "The  War  in  the  Air"  in  its 
vivid  account  of  world-wide  war,  nations  armed 
with  novel  weapons  and  forces,  appalling  power 
for  destruction  and  attack  in  the  hands  of  every 
nation,  together  with  complete  incapacity  for  de- 
fense by  any  nation,  the  resulting  collapse  of  credit, 
panic,  starvation,  anarchy  and  a  general  social 
debacle.  But  while  the  "war  in  the  air"  meant  the 

l77l 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

end  of  civilization,  the  war  with  "atomic  bombs" 
in  the  present  book  results  in  a  general  treaty  of 
peace,  the  foundation  of  a  world  state  under  a 
provisional  government,  and  a  successful  reorganiza- 
tion of  society  in  which  the  forces  which  had  been 
used  by  nations  and  empires  to  conquer  each  other 
are  directed  to  the  task  of  subduing  nature  to 
human  aims. 

Like  the  reconstructed  world  of  "In  the  Days  of 
the  Comet"  the  future  state  is  very  faintly  depicted, 
hinted  at  rather  than  described,  in  "The  World  Set 
Free."  It  differs  from  the  numerous  other  Utopias 
of  Mr.  Wells  in  that,  whereas  the  world  states  of 
"Anticipations",  "A  Modern  Utopia",  "In  the 
Days  of  the  Comet",  etc.,  could  be  brought  about 
by  nothing  more  than  taking  the  author's  advice 
on  politics,  law,  economics,  and  social  customs, 
"The  World  Set  Free"  depends  upon  scientific 
discovery.  A  new  hypothesis,  in  short,  has  given 
the  inhabitants  of  this  Utopia  an  advantage  over 
all  previous  Utopias.  They  have  energy  at  their 
command  almost  as  freely  accessible  as  water  or 
air,  and  so  the  labor  question  is  annihilated,  the 
whole  world  becomes  a  leisure  class,  and  everybody 
is  free  to  devote  his  life  to  gardening,  artistic  decora- 
tion, and  scientific  research.  Country  life  becomes 

[78] 


H.   G.   WELLS 

a  constant  delight.  The  agriculturist  shrinks  to 
less  than  one  per  cent  of  the  population.  The 
lawyer  follows  the  warrior  into  extinction.  "Con- 
tentious professions  cease  to  be  an  honorable  em- 
ployment for  men." 

The  Parliament  of  the  World,  which  came  into 
existence  after  the  atomic  explosions  of  1950,  was 
simple  and  sensible ;  fifty  new  representatives 
elected  every  five  years ;  proportional  representa- 
tion ;  every  man  and  woman  with  an  equal  vote ; 
election  for  life  subject  to  recall ;  each  voter  putting 
on  his  ballot  the  names  of  those  he  wishes  elected 
and  those  he  wishes  recalled ;  a  representative  re- 
callable by  as  many  votes  as  the  quota  that  elected 
him.  But  political  machinery  does  not  count  for 
much  in  this  most  modern  of  Utopias.  A  scrap  of 
the  conversation  between  the  President  of  the 
United  States  and  King  Egbert,  "the  young  king 
of  the  most  venerable  kingdom  in  Europe",  will 
illustrate  the  point  of  view  : 

"Science,"  the  King  cried  presently,  "is  the  new 
king  of  the  world." 

"Our  view,"  said  the  President,  "is  that  sover- 
eignty resides  with  the  people." 

"No,"  said  the  King,  "the  sovereign  is  a  being 
more  subtle  than  that,  and  less  arithmetical ;  neither 
my  family  nor  your  emancipated  people.  It  is  some- 

[79] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

thing  that  floats  about  us  and  above  us  and  through 
us.  It  is  that  common  impersonal  will  and  sense  of 
necessity  of  which  science  is  the  best  understood  and 
most  typical  aspect.  It  is  the  mind  of  the  race.  It 
is  that  which  has  brought  us  here,  which  has  bowed 
us  all  to  its  demands." 

The  agency  which  effects  this  transformation  is 
the  discovery  of  how  to  release  the  internal  energy 
of  the  atom,  which  we  now  know  exists,  although 
we  do  not  know  how  to  get  at  it.  Since  wealth  is 
essentially  nothing  but  energy  this  means  that  we 
have  within  reach  enough  to  make  multi-million- 
aires of  all  of  us ;  a  tantalizing  thought.  The  new 
disintegrating  element,  according  to  Mr.  Wells, 
is  carolinum,  an  element  that  Professor  Baskerville 
also  discovered  on  paper  a  few  years  ago.  This 
exhaustless  supply  of  energy  being  utilized  in  ma- 
chinery sets  free  the  laborer  and  swells  the  army 
of  the  unemployed ;  and  since,  incidentally,  one 
of  the  by-products  of  its  decomposition  is  gold, 
the  financial  systems  of  the  world  go  to  smash. 
But  naturally  carolinum  finds  speedy  employment 
in  war.  A  bomb  of  it  buried  in  the  soil  becomes 
a  perpetual  volcano,  half  of  it  exploding  every 
seventeen  days.  A  few  bombs  of  this  radioactive 
element  dropped  from  aeroplanes  demolish  Paris 
and  Berlin  and  throw  the  world  into  a  chaos  of 

[80] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

confusion,  which  Wells's  characteristic  style,  with 
its  flashlight  visions,  its  tumultuous  phrases,  and 
its  shifting  points  of  view,  its  alternations  of  general- 
ization and  detail,  is  particularly  adapted  to  depict. 
The  value  of  this  romance,  aside  from  its  in- 
terest, lies  in  the  emphatic  way  in  which  it  teaches 
the  lesson  that  civilization  is  primarily  a  matter  of 
the  utilization  of  natural  energy  and  is  measurable 
in  horse  power.  Unfortunately  we  have  to  depend 
upon  the  sunshine,  either  that  of  the  present  or  of 
the  carboniferous  era ;  we  have  no  key  to  the  treas- 
ure-house of  the  atom.  Radium  gives  out  its 
energy  without  haste  or  rest,  just  as  fast  at  the 
temperature  of  liquid  air  as  at  the  temperature  of 
liquid  iron,  always  keeping  itself  a  little  hotter 
than  its  surroundings,  however  hot  these  may 
be.  If  only  we  could  get  at  this  source  of  ex- 
haustless  energy  —  but  let  Wells  say  what  that 
would  mean  : 

Not  only  should  we  have  a  source  of  power  so 
potent  that  a  man  might  carry  in  his  hand  the 
energy  to  light  a  city  for  a  year,  fight  a  fleet  of 
battleships  or  drive  one  of  our  giant  liners  across 
the  Atlantic ;  but  we  should  also  have  a  clue  that 
would  enable  us  at  last  to  quicken  the  process  of 
disintegration  in  all  the  other  elements,  where 
decay  is  still  so  slow  as  to  escape  our  finest  meas- 
urements. Every  scrap  of  solid  matter  in  the 

[81] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

world  would  become  an  available  reservoir  of  con- 
centrated force. 

It  would  mean  a  change  in  human  conditions 
that  I  can  only  compare  to  the  discovery  of  fire, 
that  first  discovery  that  lifted  man  above  the  brute. 
We  stand  to-day  toward  radio-activity  exactly  as 
our  ancestor  stood  toward  fire  before  he  had  learnt 
to  make  it.  .  He  knew  it  then  only  as  a  strange  thing 
utterly  beyond  his  control,  a  flare  on  the  crest  of 
the  volcano,  a  red  destruction  that  poured  through 
the  forest.  So  it  is  that  we  know  radio-activity 
to-day.  This  —  this  is  the  dawn  of  a  new  day  in 
human  living.  At  the  climax  of  that  civilization 
which  had  its  beginning  in  the  hammered  flint  and 
the  fire-stick  of  the  savage,  just  when  it  is  becoming 
apparent  that  our  ever-increasing  needs  cannot  be 
borne  indefinitely  by  our  present  sources  of  energy, 
we  discover  suddenly  the  possibility  of  an  entirely 
new  civilization.  The  energy  we  need  for  our  very 
existence,  and  with  which  Nature  supplies  us  still 
so  grudgingly,  is  in  reality  locked  up  in  inconceivable 
quantities  all  about  us.  We  cannot  pick  that  lock 
at  present,  but 

Then  that  perpetual  struggle  for  existence,  that 
perpetual  struggle  to  live  on  the  bare  surplus  of 
Nature's  energies  will  cease  to  be  the  lot  of  Man. 
Man  will  step  from  the  pinnacle  of  this  civilization 
to  the  beginning  of  the  next.1 

Wells  is  a  futurist  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word, 
appraising  all  things  by  what  shall  come  out  of  them. 
This  led  him  to  a  realization  of  the  importance  of 
eugenics  long  before  the  fad  came  in.  In  "Mankind 

1  The  World  Set  Free." 
[82] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

in   the  Making"   he   formulated   his   test  of  civili- 
zation in  these  words : 

Any  collective  human  enterprise,  institution, 
party,  or  state,  is  to  be  judged  as  a  whole  and  com- 
pletely, as  it  conduces  more  or  less  to  wholesome  and 
hopeful  births  and  according  to  the  qualitative  and 
quantitative  advance  due  to  its  influence  toward  a 
higher  and  ampler  standard  of  life. 

But  when  it  comes  to  practical  measures  for  se- 
curing these  advantages,  Wells  shows  a  charac- 
teristic timidity.  He  condemns  certain  obvious 
dysgenic  measures,  such  as  the  action  of  school 
boards  in  imposing  celibacy  upon  women  teachers, 
but  in  several  respects  legislation  in  America  has 
already  gone  beyond  what  he  ten  years  ago  con- 
sidered possible.  So,  too,  in  his  "Anticipations" 
he  suggested  as  future  possibilities  inventions  and 
practices  that  were  then  familiar  to  us  in  this  coun- 
try. It  is  hard  for  a  man  nowadays  to  be  a  prophet. 
If  he  doesn't  look  sharp  he  will  find  himself  an  his- 
torian instead. 

When  H.  G.  Wells  in  1902  essayed  the  role  of 
prophet  and  in  his  volume  entitled  "Anticipations" 
tried  to  forecast  the  future  of  the  world  on  scientific 
principles,  he  excited  the  same  popular  interest 
that  any  guess  at  coming  events  arouses,  but  there 

[83] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

were  few  who  took  him  seriously.  Now,  however, 
"Anticipations"  makes  very  interesting  reading. 
Much  of  it  has  already  come  to  pass,  and  we  see 
that  Wells's  chief  mistake  lay  in  putting  his  forecast 
too  far  ahead ;  for  instance,  when  he  says  that  he 
is  "inclined  to  believe  .  .  .  that  very  probably 
before  1950  a  successful  aeroplane  will  have  soared 
and  come  home  safe  and  sound." 

The  chapter  on  war  in  "Anticipations"  shows 
astonishing  power  of  prescience  in  what  he  says  of 
the  use  of  the  submarine  and  armored  automobile, 
the  development  of  trench  warfare,  the  substitution 
of  the  machine  gun  for  the  rifle,  and  the  abolition 
of  the  distinction  between  military  and  civilian 
parts  of  a  nation.  His  discussion  of  the  new  forms 
of  warfare  and  the  inadequacy  of  the  old  methods 
of  management  and  training  is  full  of  warnings 
which  it  were  well  for  his  country  to  have  heeded. 
This  is  shown  if  we  compare  that  feeling  passage  in 
which  he  describes  a  future  British  army  setting 
out  to  meet  a  scientifically  organized  foe  with  an 
actual  battle  on  the  Artois  field  as  seen  from  the 
German  side.  The  first  column  is  quoted  from 
"Anticipations",  published  fifteen  years  ago.  The 
second  column  is  taken  from  Kellermann's  picture 
of  the  battle  of  Loos,  September  22,  1915,  pub- 

[84] 


H.   G.   WELLS 


lished  in  the  Continental  Times  of  Berlin.  Bernard 
Kellermann,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  the  younger 
writers  of  Germany,  is  well  known  in  America 
through  his  novel,  "The  Tunnel",  dealing  with  a 
submarine  passage  to  Europe. 

THE  PROPHECY,  1902         THE  FULFILLMENT,  1915 


I  seem  to  see,  almost  as  if 
he  were  symbolic,  the  gray 
old  general  —  the  general  who 
learned  his  art  of  war  away  in 
the  vanished  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, the  altogether  too  elderly 
general  with  his  epaulettes 
and  decorations,  his  uniform 
that  has  still  its  historical 
value,  his  spurs  and  his  sword 
—  riding  along  on  his  obsolete 
horse,  by  the  side  of  his 
doomed  column.  Above  all 
things  he  is  a  gentleman.  And 
the  column  looks  at  him  lov- 
ingly with  its  countless  boys' 
faces,  and  the  boys'  eyes  are 
infinitely  trustful,  for  he  has 
won  battles  in  the  old  time. 
They  will  believe  in  him  to  the 
end.  They  have  been  brought 
up  in  their  schools  to  believe 
in  him  and  his  class,  their 
mothers  have  mingled  respect 
for  the  gentlefolk  with  the 
simple  doctrines  of  their  faith, 
their  first  lesson  on  entering 
the  army  was  the  salute.  The 
"smart"  helmets  His  Majesty, 
or  some  such  unqualified  per- 
son, chose  for  them  lie  hotly 
on  their  young  brows,  and 


They  made  the  essay  with 
absolutely  new,  absolutely  an- 
tiquated tactics  —  tactics 
which  are  no  longer  recognized 
in  this  war. 

It  was  something  really  un- 
heard of!  Our  staff  officers 
stood  and  regarded  it  —  their 
mouths  open  in  astonishment. 
It  was  observed,  shortly  be- 
fore noon,  that  the  English 
were  advancing  toward  our 
positions  in  dense  masses, 
eight  lines  deep  in  echelon  — 
from  Loos.  A  hail  of  shells 
that  churned  up  the  ground 
was  supposed  to  smooth  the 
way  for  the  storming  columns. 
At  the  same  time,  to  the  east 
of  Loos  (there  is  a  bit  of  rising 
ground  there  scarcely  notice- 
able as  you  drive  over  it  in  a 
wagon,  called  Hill  70),  we  saw 
English  artillery  come  riding 
up  —  quite  open  —  in  the 
broad  of  day  —  under  the 
naked  heavens !  These  bat- 
teries carried  bridge  materials 
with  them  for  the  crossing  of 
trenches  and  natural  obstacles. 
The  English  general  we  caught 
describes  this  action  as  one 


[85] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 


over  their  shoulders  slope 
their  obsolete,  carelessly- 
sighted  guns.  Tramp,  tramp, 
they  march,  doing  what  they 
have  been  told  to  do,  incapable 
of  doing  anything  they  have 
not  been  told  to  do,  trustful 
and  pitiful,  marching  to 
wounds  and  disease,  hunger, 
hardship,  and  death.  They 
know  nothing  of  what  they 
are  going  to  meet,  nothing  of 
what  they  will  have  to  do; 
religion  and  the  rate-payer 
and  the  rights  of  the  parent 
working  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  the  best  club  in 
the  world  have  kept  their  souls 
and  minds,  if  not  untainted, 
at  least  only  harmlessly  ve- 
neered with  the  thinnest  sham 
of  training  or  knowledge. 
Tramp,  tramp,  they  go,  boys 
who  will  never  be  men,  re- 
joicing patriotically  in  the 
nation  that  has  thus  sent 
them  forth,  badly  armed, 
badly  clothed,  badly  led,  to 
be  killed  in  some  avoidable 
quarrel  by  men  unseen.  And 
beside  them,  an  absolute 
stranger  to  them,  a  stranger 
even  in  habits  of  speech  and 
thought,  and  at  any  rate  to 
be  shot  with  them  fairly  and 
squarely,  marches  the  sub- 
altern —  the  son  of  the  school- 
burking,  share-holding  class  — 
a  slightly  taller  sort  of  boy, 
as  ill-taught  as  they  are  in  all 
that  concerns  the  realities  of 
life,  ignorant  of  how  to  get 
food,  how  to  get  water,  how 


that  was  especially  "sport- 
ing." There  can  be  no  doubt 
about  its  dashing  quality. 
But  there  was  more  to  come. 
In  the  distance,  on  the  level 
plain,  one  or  two  English 
cavalry  regiments  were  visible 
—  Dragoons  of  the  Guard. 

Eight  lines  of  infantry  ? 
Artillery  driving  across  the 
open  ?  Cavalry  in  the  back- 
ground ?  It  was  really  un- 
believable !  It  was  the  plan 
of  a  veritable  pitched  battle 
from  a  forgotten  age,  the  mas- 
terly idea  of  a  senile  brain, 
which  had  come  limping  along 
fifty  years  behind  the  times ! 
Generals  in  our  day  grow  ob- 
solete as  rapidly  as  inventions 
and  sciences.  The  war  has 
taught  us  that  the  blood  of 
nations,  the  incalculably  pre- 
cious blood,  is  to  be  entrusted 
only  to  the  freshest,  the  most 
elastic,  the  most  gifted  of 
military  spirits,  the  very  cream 
of  the  crop.  Those  old  celeb- 
rities of  theirs,  staggering 
under  their  orders,  should 
have  been  consigned  to  relay 
stations  by  the  English. 

The  English  troops  carried 
out  their  attack  with  a  splen- 
did gesture,  with  admirable 
bravoure.  They  were  young 
and  they  bore  no  orders  on 
their  uniforms.  They  carried 
out  the  commands  of  their 
celebrated  and  senile  authori- 
ties, carried  them  out  with  a 
blind  courage  —  in  this  day  of 
mortars,  telephones  and  ma- 


[86] 


H.  G.   WELLS 


to  keep  fever  down  and 
strength  up,  ignorant  of  his 
practical  equality  with  the 
men  beside  him,  carefully 
trained  under  a  clerical  head- 
master to  use  a  crib,  play 
cricket  rather  nicely,  look  all 
right  whatever  happens,  be- 
lieve in  his  gentility,  and  avoid 
talking  "shop." 

So  the  gentlemanly  old 
general  —  the  polished  drover 
to  the  shambles  —  rides,  and 
his  doomed  column  march  by, 
in  this  vision  that  haunts  my 
mind. 

I  cannot  foresee  what  such 
a  force  will  even  attempt  to 
do  against  modern  weapons. 
Nothing  can  happen  but  the 
needless  and  most  wasteful 
and  pitiful  killing  of  these 
poor  lads,  who  make  up  the 
infantry  battalions,  the  main 
mass  of  all  the  European 
armies  of  to-day,  whenever 
they  come  against  a  sanely 
organized  army.  There  is 
nowhere  they  can  come  in; 
there  is  nothing  they  can  do. 
The  scattered,  invisible  marks- 
men with  their  supporting 
guns  will  shatter  their  masses, 
pick  them  off  individually, 
cover  their  line  of  retreat  and 
force  them  into  wholesale 
surrenders.  It  will  be  more 
like  herding  sheep  than  actual 
fighting.  Yet  the  bitterest 
and  crudest  things  will  have 
to  happen,  thousands  and 
thousands  of  poor  boys  will 
be  smashed  in  all  sorts  of 


chine-guns.  As  magnificent 
as  was  their  bearing,  even  so 
pitiful  was  the  collapse  of 
their  onslaught. 

Before  the  eightfold  storm- 
ing columns  had  been  able  to 
make  ten  steps,  they  came 
under  our  combined  fire  — 
rifles,  machine-guns,  cannon. 
The  batteries  were  lying  in 
wait  and  they  obeyed  the  tele- 
phone. The  English  knights 
and  baronets  had  not  reckoned 
with  this.  Fresh  reserves  came 
running  up  and  were  mown 
down  in  the  cross-fire  of  our 
machine-guns.  Those  riding 
batteries  came  to  a  miserable 
end.  They  too  came  within 
the  zone  of  the  machine-guns, 
and  our  heavy  mortars,  no- 
tified by  telephone,  got  hold 
of  them  so  swiftly  and  so 
thoroughly,  that  they  were 
not  even  given  time  to  un- 
limber.  The  regiments  of  cav- 
alry that  were  waiting  in  the 
background,  ready  to  come 
dashing  through,  got  salvoes 
of  the  heaviest  shells  full  in 
their  faces,  and  drew  back 
without  having  drawn  a  blade 
from  the  scabbard.  That 
finished  the  pitched  battle. 
And  the  attack  broke  to 
pieces  in  front  of  our  wire  en- 
tanglements. 

A  prodigious  number  of 
their  dead  lay  before  our 
trenches.  We  had  made  800 
prisoners,  among  them  a  colo- 
nel, four  majors,  and  fifteen 
officers.  At  a  conservative 


[87] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

dreadful  ways  and  given  over  estimate,    the    losses    of    the 

to  every  conceivable  form  of  English  in  this  single  section 

avoidable  hardship  and  pain-  of  the  division,  may  be  fixed 

ful  disease  before  the  obvious  in   dead   and   wounded   as   at 

fact  that  war  is  no  longer  a  least    20,000.     It    was     clear 

business  for  half-trained   lads  that,  apart  from  a  small  local 

in  uniform,  led  by  parson-bred  success,  it  had  been  a  disas- 

sixth-form   boys   and   men   of  trous   job   for   the   Britishers, 

pleasure  and  old  men,  but  an  Never  before   has  it  been   so 

exhaustive  demand  upon  very  clearly  proved  that  war  is  not 

carefully  educated   adults  for  a  sport  for  a  dozen  or  two  of 

the  most  strenuous  best  that  privileged  dilettantes.3 
is  in  them,  will  get  its  practical 
recognition.1 

Wells  made  his  first  hit  with  "The  Time  Ma- 
chine", written  under  high  pressure  of  the  idea 
within  a  fortnight  by  keeping  at  his  desk  almost 
continuously  from  nine  in  the  morning  to  eleven 
at  night.  It  is  based  upon  the  theory  that  time  is 
a  fourth  dimension  of  space,3  and  by  a  suitable 

1  From  Wells's  "Anticipations." 

2  From  Kellermann's  account  of  the  Battle  of  Loos. 

8  It  would  be  interesting  to  learn  where  Wells  happened  to  get  hold 
of  the  idea  that  time  is  the  fourth  dimension  of  reality  and  how  much 
he  knew  then  of  the  history  of  the  conception.  He  could  not,  at  any 
rate,  for  all  his  prophetic  powers,  have  foreseen  the  important  part  it 
was  to  play  in  scientific  thought  and  metaphysical  speculation  in  the 
coming  century.  Lorentz,  Einstein  and  Minkowski  have  incorporated 
it  into  their  new  theory  of  relativity  which  threatens  to  abolish  the 
ether  and  to  make  mass  a  variable,  dependent  on  velocity.  Our  or- 
dinary Euclidean  or  three  dimensional  space  would  thus  be  a  cross- 
section  at  a  certain  time.  (See  "The  Time-Space  Manifold  of 
Relativity",  by  Edwin  B.  Wilson  and  G.  N.  Lewis,  in  Proceedings  of  the 
American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  November,  1912.)  Heinrich 
Czolbe  in  1875  brought  forward  the  theory  (see  Miiller,  Archiv  fur 
systematische  Philosophie,  XVII,  p.  106),  and  Lotze  discusses  it  in  his 

[88] 


H.  G.   WELLS 

invention  one  may  travel  back  and  forth  along  that 
line.  Having  once  got  his  seat  in  his  time-machine 
Wells  has  never  abandoned  it.  He  uses  it  still  in 
his  novels,  in  "Tono-Bungay,"  "The  New  Machia- 
velli",  and  "The  Passionate  Friends",  telling  the 
story  partly  in  retrospect,  partly  in  prospect,  flying 
back  and  forth  in  the  most  mystifying  manner,  pro- 
ducing thereby  a  remarkable  effect  of  the  perpetual 
contemporaneity  of  existence,  though  some  readers 
are  dizzied  by  it. 

The  charm  of  a  masked  ball  is  that  it  enables 
people  to  do  and  say  what  they  please,  in  short  to 
reveal  themselves  because  their  faces  are  concealed. 
Anonymity  has  the  same  effect,  as  many  a  name  from 
"Currer  Bell"  to  "Fiona  McLeod"  attests.  So 
it  is  not  surprising  that  the  book  l  which  purports 
to  have  been  written  by  one  "George  Boon"  and 
compiled  by  one  "Reginald  Bliss"  shows  Wellsian 

"Microcosmos."  Bergson's  philosophy  is  based  upon  the  distinction 
he  draws  between  psychological  duration  and  the  physical  treatment 
of  time  as  a  kind  of  space.  Professor  Pitkin  of  Columbia  criticizes 
Wells's  time-machine  from  the  metaphysical  standpoint  in  "Time  and 
Pure  Activity"  (Journal  Philosophy,  Psychology  and  Scientific  Methods, 
Vol.  ii,  No.  19). 

^'Boon,  The  Mind  of  the  Race,  The  Wild  Asses  of  the  Devil,  and 
The  Last  Trump.  Being  a  First  Selection  from  the  Literary  Remains 
of  George  Boon,  Appropriate  to  the  Times.  Prepared  for  Publication 
by  Reginald  Bliss,  with  an  Ambiguous  Introduction  by  H.  G.  Wells." 
(Doran,  1915.) 

[89] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

characteristics  more  pronounced  than  any  of  the 
volumes  of  which  H.  G.  Wells  owns  authorship. 

For  one  thing  Wells  obviously  likes  to  start  things 
better  than  to  finish  them.  He  is  apt  to  run  out 
of  breath  before  he  comes  to  the  end  of  a  novel, 
and  if  he  gets  his  second  wind  it  is  likely  to  be 
some  other  kind  of  wind.  In  most  of  his  books 
except  the  short  stories  the  reader  feels  that  the 
author  is  saying  to  himself,  "I  wish  I  had  this 
thing  off  my  hands  so  I  could  get  at  that  new 
idea  of  mine." 

Then,  too,  Wells  is  fond  of  putting  a  story  inside 
of  a  story,  like  the  Arabian  Nights,  and  it  often 
happens  that  the  "flash-backs",  to  borrow  a  cinema 
phrase,  are  confusing.  The  framework  of  "The 
Modern  Utopia"  is  an  instance  of  this.  It  is  some- 
times hard  to  tell  in  this  where  we  are  or  who  is 
speaking. 

Wells  is  inimitable  in  his  ability  to  sketch  a  char- 
acter in  a  few  swift  strokes,  but  he  does  not  care  much 
for  the  character  afterward.  He  delights  in  taking 
such  snapshots,  but  he  hates  to  develop  them.  His 
mind  is  quick  to  change.  He  is  liable  to  be  dis- 
concerted by  a  sudden  vision  of  an  opposing  view. 
Sometimes  in  the  middle  of  a  sentence  he  will  be 
seized  with  a  doubt  of  what  he  is  saying,  and  being 

[90] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

an  honest  man,  he  leaves  it  in  air  rather  than  finish 
it  after  he  has  lost  confidence.  He  may  double  on 
his  track  like  a  hunted  fox  within  the  compass  of  a 
single  volume. 

Finally,  Wells  is  fond  of  satirizing  his  contempo- 
raries, including  his  best  friends  and  his  former  selves. 
He  is  given  to  mixing  realistic  description  with 
recondite  symbolism,  desultory  argumentation  with 
extraneous  personalities,  and  other  incongruous 
combinations  of  style  and  thought. 

Now  all  these  peculiarities,  call  them  faults  or 
merits  as  you  like,  are  to  be  found  intensified  in 
"Boon"  Etc.  First  Mr.  Wells  introduces  Mr. 
Bliss,  who  then  introduces  Mr.  Boon,  a  famous 
author  deceased,  and  tells  how  they  together  invented 
Mr.  Hallery,  who  introduces  a  host  of  living  writers, 
big  and  little,  known  and  unknown,  at  the  World 
Conference  on  the  Mind  of  the  Race.  He  has  given 
me  the  honor  of  a  seat  on  a  special  committee  of 
Section  S,  devoted  to  Poiometry,  the  scientific 
measurement  of  literary  greatness. 

The  volume  is  illustrated  by  the  author  —  who- 
ever he  may  be  —  but  the  best  caricatures  are  not 
the  graphic  but  the  verbal  ones  with  their  amusing 
parodies  of  style.  Perhaps  the  best  of  these  is  an 
imaginary  conversation  between  Henry  James  and 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

George    Moore,    in    which    both    gentlemen    pursue 
entirely  independent  trains  of  thought. 

Here's  the  sketch  of  "Dodd."  We  recognize 
him,  although  we  do  not  know  who  Dodd  is  : 

Dodd  is  a  leading  member  of  the  Rationalist 
Press  Association,  a  militant  agnostic,  and  a  dear 
compact  man,  one  of  those  Middle  Victorians  who 
go  about  with  a  preoccupied,  caulking  air,  as  though, 
having  been  at  great  cost  and  pains  to  banish  God 
from  the  Universe,  they  were  resolved  not  to  permit 
Him  back  on  any  terms  whatever.  He  has  con- 
stituted himself  a  sort  of  alert  customs  officer  of  a 
materialistic  age,  saying  suspiciously:  "Here,  now, 
what's  this  rapping  under  the  table  here?"  and 
examining  every  proposition  to  see  that  the  Creator 
wasn't  being  smuggled  back  under  some  specious 
new  generalization.  Boon  used  to  declare  that 
every  night  Dodd  looked  under  his  bed  for  the  Deity, 
and  slept  with  a  large  revolver  under  his  pillow  for 
fear  of  a  revelation. 

One  advantage  of  anonymity  is  that  Wells  can 
contradict  himself  with  even  more  freedom  than 
usual.  For  instance,  he  expresses  great  contempt 
for  Bergson  and  his  "Pragmatism  for  Ladies."  But 
not  long  ago,  in  "Marriage",  he  was  contemptuous 
of  "Doctor  Quiller  [Schiller]  of  Oxford,"  for  "ignor- 
ing Bergson  and  fulminating  a  preposterous  insular 
Pragmatism." 

Much  of  the  volume  was  manifestly  written  in 

[92] 


H.   G.   WELLS 

the  calm  days  before  the  war,  but  the  fragment 
entitled  "The  Wild  Asses  of  the  Devil"  expresses 
in  fantastic  guise  his  —  and  the  world's  —  confusion 
and  despair  at  the  catastrophe  which  has  over- 
whelmed the  human  race.  "It  is  like  a  dying  man 
strangling  a  robber  in  his  death  grip.  We  shall  beat 
them,  but  we  shall  be  dead  beat  in  doing  it,"  says 
Boon,  and  he  rejects  all  suggestions  that  it  may  be  a 
good  thing  in  the  end  : 

No!  War  is  just  the  killing  of  things  and  the 
smashing  of  things.  And  when  it  is  all  over,  then 
civilization  will  have  to  begin  all  over  again.  They 
will  have  to  begin  lower  down  and  against  a  heavier 
load  and  the  days  of  our  jesting  are  done.  The 
Wild  Asses  of  the  Devil  are  loose  and  there  is  no 
restraining  them.  What  is  the  good  of  pretending 
that  the  Wild  Asses  are  the  instruments  of  Providence 
kicking  better  than  we  know  ?  It  is  all  evil.  Evil. 

There  are  many  different  Wellses.  Probably 
nobody  likes  all  of  them.  He  does  not  like  all  of 
himselves.  In  writing  a  preface  or  otherwise  re- 
ferring to  an  earlier  work  he  is,  after  the  manner  of 
Maeterlinck,  almost  apologetic,  and  looks  back 
upon  the  author  with  a  curious  wonder  as  to  how 
he  came  to  hold  such  opinions  and  express  them  in 
such  a  way.  Those  of  us  who  have  grown  up  with 
him,  so  to  speak,  and  followed  his  mind  through  all 

l93l 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

its  metamorphoses  in  their  natural  order  can  under- 
stand him  better,  I  believe,  than  those  of  the  younger 
generation  who  begin  with  the  current  serial  and 
read  his  works  backward.  Mr.  Wells  is  just  about 
my  age.  We  were  in  the  laboratory  together  and 
breathed  the  same  atmosphere,  although  five  thou- 
sand miles  apart.  When  he  began  to  write  I  was 
ready  to  read  and  to  admire  the  skill  with  which  he 
utilized  for  literary  purposes  the  wealth  of  material 
to  be  found  in  the  laboratory.  Jules  Verne  had 
worked  the  same  rich  vein,  clumsily  but  with  great 
success.  Poe  had  done  marvels  in  the  short  story 
with  such  scanty  science  as  he  had  at  his  command. 
But  Wells,  trained  under  Huxley  in  biology  at  the 
University  of  London,  had  all  this  new  knowledge 
to  draw  upon.  He  could  handle  technicalities  with 
a  far  defter  touch  than  Verne  and  almost  rivaled 
Poe  in  the  evocation  of  emotions  of  horror  and  mys- 
tery. Besides  this  he  possessed  what  both  these 
authors  lacked,  a  sense  of  humor,  a  keen  appreciation 
of  the  whimsicalities  of  human  nature.  So  he  was 
enabled  to  throw  off  in  the  early  nineties  a  swift 
succession  of  short  stories  astonishingly  varied  in 
style  and  theme.  As  he  became  more  experienced 
in  the  art  of  writing,  or  rather  of  marketing  manu- 
scripts, he  seems  to  have  regretted  this  youthful 

[94] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

prodigality  of  bright  ideas.  Many  of  them  he  later 
worked  over  on  a  more  extensive  scale  as  the  metal- 
lurgist goes  back  to  a  mine  and  with  an  improved 
process  extracts  more  gold  from  the  tailings  and 
dump  than  the  miner  got  out  of  the  ore  originally. 

"The  Star"  was  the  first  of  these  I  came  across, 
clipping  it  for  my  scrap  book  from  Harper's  Weekly, 
I  believe.  First  loves  in  literature  make  an  indelible 
impression,  so  I  will  always  hold  that  nothing  Wells 
has  done  since  can  equal  it.  Certainly  it  was  not 
improved  by  expanding  it  to  "In  the  Days  of  the 
Comet."  The  germ  of  that  creepy  tale  of  advanced 
vivisection,  "The  Island  of  Dr.  Moreau",  appeared 
first  in  the  Saturday  Review,  January,  1895,  as  a 
brief  sketch,  "Doctor  Moreau  Explains."  "The 
Dream  of  Armageddon",  vivid  and  swift  as  a  land- 
scape under  a  flash  of  lightning,  served  in  large  part 
for  two  later  volumes,  "When  the  Sleeper  Wakes" 
and  'The  New  Machiavelli." 

It  was,  as  I  have  said,  "The  Star"  that  first  at- 
tracted me  to  Wells.  It  was  "The  Sea-Lady"  who 
introduced  me  to  him  personally.  It  was  in  the 
back  room  of  a  little  Italian  restaurant  in  New 
York,  one  of  those  sixty-cent  table  d'hotes  where 
rich  soup  and  huge  haystacks  of  spaghetti  serve 
to  conceal  the  meagerness  of  the  other  five  courses. 

[95] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

Here  foregathered  for  years  a  group  of  Socialists, 
near-Socialists,  and  others  of  less  definable  types, 
alike  in  holding  the  belief  that  the  world  could  be 
moved  and  ought  to  be,  but  disagreeing  agreeably 
as  to  where  the  fulcrum  could  be  placed  and  what 
power  should  move  the  lever.  We  called  ourselves 
the  "X  Club",  partly  because  the  outcome  of  such 
a  combination  of  diverse  factors  was  highly  prob- 
lematical, partly  perhaps  in  emulation  of  the  cele- 
brated London  X.  One  evening  some  ten  years 
ago,  as  I  came  late  to  the  dinner,  I  noticed  that  the 
members  were  not  all  talking  at  once,  as  usual,  but 
concentrated  their  attention  upon  a  guest,  a  quiet, 
unassuming  individual,  rather  short,  with  a  sun- 
browned  face,  tired  eyes,  and  a  pessimistic  mustache 
—  a  Londoner,  I  judged  from  his  accent  Then  I 
was  introduced  to  him  as  "The  man  who  knows  all 
your  works  by  heart,  Mr.  Wells."  This  disconcert- 
ing introduction  was  their  revenge  for  my  too 
frequent  quotation  in  debate.  The  reason,  I  sup- 
pose, for  the  old  saying,  "Beware  the  man  of  one 
book",  is  because  he  is  such  a  bore. 

Mr.  Wells  appeared  to  take  the  introduction 
literally  and  began  to  examine  me  on  the  subject. 
"Did  you  ever  read  'The  Sea-Lady'?"  I  happily 
was  able  to  say  I  had,  and  was  let  off  from  any 

[96] 


H.   G.   WELLS 

further  questions,  for  he  said  that  he  had  never 
met  but  two  persons  before  who  admitted  having 
read  the  book.  I  am  glad  he  did  not  ask  me  what 
it  meant,  for  while  I  had  an  opinion  on  the  subject, 
it  might  not  have  agreed  with  his. 

Then  we  turned  the  tables  on  Mr.  Wells  and  for 
the  rest  of  the  evening  asked  him  questions  and 
criticized  his  views ;  all  of  which  he  took  very  good- 
naturedly  and  was  apparently  not  displeased  there- 
by, since  in  the  book  about  his  trip,  "The  Future 
in  America",  he  expressed  disappointment  at  not 
finding  in  Washington  any  "such  mentally  vigorous 
discussion  centers  as  the  New  York  X  Club." 

Five  years  later  I  had  another  glimpse  of  Mr. 
Wells,  this  time  a  jolly  evening  at  his  home,  where 
he  kept  his  guests,  a  dozen  young  men  and  women, 
entertained,  first  by  playing  on  the  pianola,  which 
he  bought  at  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Shaw;  after- 
ward by  improvising  a  drama  for  the  occasion,  the 
star  role  being  taken  by  his  wife,  whom  I  had  seen 
a  few  days  before  marching  in  the  great  London 
suffrage  procession.  Mr.  Wells's  home  differs  from 
most  London  houses  in  having  a  view  and  a  park. 
The  back  windows  look  over  all  the  sea  of  houses, 
the  shipping  in  the  Thames,  and,  smoke  permitting, 
the  Surrey  hills  beyond.  On  the  other  side  of  the 

[97] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

house  five  minutes'  walk  uphill  brings  one  to  Hamp- 
stead  Heath,  the  largest  of  London's  public  places, 
which  serves  Mr.  Wells  for  his  long  walks. 

Mr.  Wells  perhaps  got  his  love  of  outdoor  life 
from  his  father,  Joseph  Wells,  who  was  a  profes- 
sional cricketer  and  the  son  of  the  head  gardener 
of  Lord  de  Lisle  at  Penhurst  Castle,  in  Kent.  His 
mother  was  the  daughter  of  an  innkeeper  at  Mid- 
hurst.  Herbert  George  Wells  was  born  in  Bromley, 
Kent,  September  21,  1866,  and  his  childhood  impres- 
sions of  his  mother's  kitchen  and  his  father's  garden 
and  shop  he  has  described  in  "First  and  Last  Things" 
and  in  "Tono-Bungay. "  In  this  novel,  the  first, 
perhaps,  to  be  devoted  to  that  conspicuous  feature 
of  modern  life,  the  patent  medicine,  he  has  utilized 
his  brief  experience  as  a  chemist's  apprentice,  or,  as 
we  would  say,  a  drug  clerk.  Next  an  unsuccessful 
attempt  was  made  to  train  him  as  a  draper's  assist- 
ant —  a  dry  goods  clerk,  in  our  language,  though 
we  have  fortunately  nothing  that  exactly  corre- 
sponds. The  hardships  and  humiliations  of  this 
experience  seem  to  have  cut  deep  into  his  soul,  for 
he  recurs  to  it  again  and  again,  always  with  bitter- 
ness, as  in  "Mr.  Polly",  "Kipps",  and  "The  Wheels 
of  Chance",  for  example.  But  to  untangle  the 
autobiographical  threads  from  the  purely  fictional 

[93] 


H.  G.   WELLS 

in  Wells's  novels  would  be  to  cheat  some  future 
candidate  for  a  Ph.  D.  in  English  literature  of  his 
thesis. 

The  interesting  point  to  observe  is  that  tempera- 
ment and  training  have  combined  to  give  him  on 
the  one  hand  a  hatred  of  this  muddled,  blind,  and 
inefficient  state  of  society  in  which  we  live,  and  on 
the  other  a  distrust  of  the  orderly,  logical,  and 
perfected  civilization  usually  suggested  as  a  pos- 
sible substitute.  He  detests  chaos,  but  is  skeptical 
of  cosmos.  Set  between  these  antipathetic  poles, 
he  vibrates  continually  like  an  electrified  pith  ball. 
He  has  a  horror  of  waste,  war,  dirt,  cruelty,  coward- 
ice, incompetency,  vagueness  of  mind,  dissipation  of 
energy,  inconvenience  of  households,  and  all  fric- 
tion, mental  or  physical.  But  yet  his  ineradicable 
realization  of  the  concrete  will  not  allow  him  to 
escape  from  these  disagreeables  by  taking  refuge  in 
such  artificial  paradises  as  Fourier's  phalanx  or 
Morris'  idyllic  anarchism.  Wells  is  a  Socialist, 
yet  he  finds  not  merely  the  Marxians,  but  even  the 
Fabians,  too  dogmatic  and  strait-laced  for  him. 
His  "Modern  Utopia"  is,  I  think,  the  first  to  mar 
the  perfection  of  its  picture  by  admitting  a  rebel, 
a  permanently  irreconcilable,  antagonistic  individ- 
uality, a  spirit  that  continually  denies.  Yet  we 

l99l 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

know  that  if  a  Utopia  is  to  come  on  earth  it  must 
have  room  for  such. 

Wells  would  never  make  a  leader  in  any  popular 
movement.  He  has  the  zeal  of  the  reformer,  but 
he  has  his  doubts,  and,  what's  worse,  he  admits  them. 
In  the  midst  of  his  most  eloquent  passages  he  stops, 
shakes  his  head,  runs  in  a  row  of  dots,  and  adds  a 
few  words,  hinting  at  another  point  of  view.  He 
has  what  James  defined  as  the  scientific  tempera- 
ment, an  intense  desire  to  prove  himself  right 
coupled  with  an  equally  intense  fear  lest  he  may  be 
wrong. 

Your  true  party  man  must  be  quite  color  blind. 
He  must  see  the  world  in  black  and  white ;  must 
ignore  tints  and  intermediate  shades.  Wells  as 
Socialist  could  not  help  seeing  —  and  saying  — 
that  there  were  many  likable  things  about  the 
Liberals.  As  a  Liberal  he  must  admit  that  the 
Tories  have  the  advantage  in  several  respects.  He 
professes  to  view  religion  rationalistically,  yet  there 
are  outbursts  of  true  mysticism  to  be  found  in  his 
books,  passages  which  prove  that  he  has  experienced 
the  emotion  of  personal  religion  more  clearly  than 
many  a  church  member. 

He  has  the  courage  of  his  convictions,  but  it  does 
not  extend  much  beyond  putting  them  into  print. 

[100] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

I  doubt  whether,  if  he  were  given  autocratic  power, 
he  would  inaugurate  his  "Modern  Utopia"  or  any 
other  of  his  visions.  At  least  he  has  hitherto  re- 
sisted all  efforts  to  induce  him  to  carry  them  into 
effect. 

For  instance,  one  of  the  most  original  and  inter- 
esting features  of  his  "Modern  Utopia"  was  the 
Samurai,  the  ruling  caste,  an  order  of  voluntary 
noblemen ;  submitting  to  a  peculiar  discipline ; 
wearing  a  distinctive  dress ;  having  a  bible  of  their 
own  selected  from  the  inspiring  literature  of  all 
ages ;  spending  at  least  a  week  of  every  year  in 
absolute  solitude  in  the  wilderness  as  a  sort  of 
spiritual  retreat  and  restorative  of  self-reliance. 
A  curious  conception  it  was,  a  combination  of 
Puritanism  and  Bushido,  of  Fourier  and  St.  Francis, 
of  Bacon's  Salomon's  House,  Plato's  philosophers 
ruling  the  republic,  and  Cecil  Rhodes's  secret  order 
of  millionaires  ruling  the  world. 

One  day  a  group  of  ardent  young  men  and  women, 
inspired  by  this  ideal,  came  to  Wells  and  announced 
that  they  had  established  the  order,  they  had  be- 
come Samurai,  and  expected  him  to  become  their 
leader,  or  at  least  to  give  them  his  blessing;  instead 
of  which  Wells  gave  them  a  lecture  on  the  sin  of 
priggishness  and  sent  them  about  their  business. 

lioi] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

I  have  no  doubt  he  was  right  about  it,  nor  does  his 
disapproval  of  this  premature  attempt  to  incorpo- 
rate the  Samurai  in  London  prove  that  there  was 
not  something  worth  while  in  the  idea.  But  it  shows 
that  Wells  knew  what  his  work  was  in  the  world 
and  proposed  to  stick  to  it,  differing  therein  from 
other  Utopians :  Edward  Bellamy,  who  because  his 
fantastic  romance,  "Looking  Backward",  happened 
to  strike  fire,  spent  the  rest  of  his  life  in  trying  to 
bring  about  the  cooperative  commonwealth  by 
means  of  clubs,  papers,  and  parties;  Dr.  Hertzka, 
who  wasted  his  substance  in  efforts  to  found  a  real 
Freeland  on  the  steppes  of  Kilimanjaro,  Africa. 

Perhaps  the  matter  with  Wells  is  simply  that  he 
cannot  find  his  proper  pigeon-hole.  Perhaps  I 
can  find  it.  Wells  has  little  sympathy  with  any 
political  grouping  or  ideal  regnant  to-day.  The 
orthodox  Tory  is  in  his  view  simply  a  man  without 
imagination.  The  orthodox  Liberal  is  a  mere 
sentimentalist  substituting  democratic  phrases  for 
science  and  discipline.  The  Imperialist,  though 
touching  Wells  at  some  points,  repels  him  by  his 
mania  for  military  expenditure  and  his  ignorant 
race  prejudice.  The  Socialist  or  Labor  Party  man 
is  appallingly  narrow  and  totally  unimpressed  with 
the  need  for  intelligence  to  rule  the  State.  In 

[102] 


H.  G.   WELLS 

"The  New  Machiavelli"  the  hero  hovers  distress- 
fully over  the  entire  field  of  modern  politics,  finding 
as  little  rest  for  his  soul  as  Noah's  dove  on  the  first 
trip  from  the  ark  found  for  its  feet.  Once  and  once 
only  has  Wells's  ideal  found  even  partial  embodi- 
ment, and  that  was  in  the  best  days  of  the  Roman 
Empire. 

There  was  the  Great  State  (in  the  familiar  capital 
letters) ;  a  world  state  so  far  as  the  world  was 
known  and  civilized.  There  was  a  universal  lan- 
guage, exact  and  lucid.  There  was  freedom  and 
security  of  travel,  at  least  as  great  as  in  those  same 
countries  to-day.  True,  Wells  would  have  dis- 
approved of  slavery.  But  so  did  the  Stoics  of  the 
Empire  disapprove  of  slavery,  at  least  in  theory. 
Their  ideal  was  a  universal  citizenship.  In  the  later 
Empire  every  freeman  in  the  Roman  Empire  was 
called  a  citizen.  There  was  tolerance,  not  only  of 
religion  but  of  manners,  such  as  the  narrow  and 
parochial  States  of  Western  Europe  which  succeeded 
its  fall  have  never  known  till  within  a  hundred 
years.  Statecraft  was  a  science;  devotion  to  the 
State  a  cult.  There  were  the  legions,  examples  of 
duty  and  discipline  and  scientific  warfare,  and  yet  a 
few  thousands  of  troops  sufficed  to  police  and  guard 
a  whole  civilized,  wealthy,  complex  world  state. 

[103] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

But  most  important  of  all  was  the  Roman  Law. 
Based  on  logical  principles ;  divested  of  superstitious 
accessories  and  irrational  taboos ;  universal  and  in 
the  main  equitable;  raised  above  the  Empire  and 
the  muddy  immediacies  of  politics  till  it  seemed 
the  voice  of  nature  itself;  flexible  and  changing, 
but  by  growth  rather  than  whim,  it  was  the  intellec- 
tual fabric  of  the  Empire.  It  so  happened  that  a 
despotic  Emperor  wielded  the  power  of  state,  but 
still  it  was  the  State  and  not  the  mere  person  of  the 
Emperor  that  was  really  reverenced.  It  was  cer- 
tainly not  the  man  or  the  artist  that  was  divine  in 
Nero,  but  the  office.  Even  in  its  decadent  and 
Byzantine  days  traces  of  the  old  ideal  remained,  and 
it  was  not  "  Charles  Richard  Henry  Etcetera,  by  the 
Grace  of  God  King  of  Anyland,  Duke  of  Some- 
wherelse,  Knight  of  the  Golden  Spur,  Most  Reverend 
Lord  of  the  Free  Cities  of  Lower  Ruritania"  in  the 
silly  medieval  (and  modern)  style,  but  "Senatus 
Populusque  Romani"  and  "Res  Publica."  The 
medieval  Papacy  was  as  universal  in  structure,  but 
was  obscurantist  in  basis,  and  left  behind  it  as  a 
legacy  the  memory  of  the  crusades  and  the  monas- 
teries and  great  cathedrals  as  its  monuments.  The 
Roman  Empire  was  rationalist  in  basis,  and  left 
behind  it  laws,  straight  roads,  aqueducts,  baths, 

[104] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

theaters,  libraries,  and  municipal  organizations. 
Chesterton  is  a  romantic  and  rather  likes  than  other- 
wise the  whimsical  eccentricities  of  modern  national 
institutions.  But  Wells,  though  he  loves  to  play 
with  science,  takes  statecraft  as  seriously  as  Marcus 
Aurelius,  and,  like  him,  he  is  a  citizen  of  the  Great 
State,  the  Cosmopolis.  The  "Modern  Utopia" 
might  have  grown  out  of  the  actual  Roman  Empire 
had  the  right  turnings  been  taken  from  that  time  to 
this ;  no  other  state  or  civilization  would  have  formed 
its  basis. 

The  significance  of  Wells's  advocacy  of  Socialism 
lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  addressed  to  the  middle 
classes.  He  might  be  called  "The  Apostle  to  the 
Genteels."  He  took  part  for  a  time  in  the  aggres- 
sive socialistic  campaign  led  by  the  Fabian  Society 
on  lines  distinct  from  but  parallel  to  the  Marxian 
working  class  propaganda.  The  orthodox  Marxian 
has  little  use  for  middle-class  people.  He  expects 
them  to  become  extinct  so  shortly  that  it  is  no  use 
trying  to  convert  them.  He  takes  no  more  interest 
in  them  than  missionaries  do  in  the  Tasmanians. 
They  will  be  ground  fine  between  the  upper  and 
nether  millstones  of  the  trusts  and  the  unions. 
Such  individuals  who  survive  will  be  able  to  do  so 
only  by  becoming  retainers  of  the  capitalists,  and  as 

[105] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

such  will  be  engulfed  with  them  in  the  revolutionary 
cataclysm  which  will  end  the  present  era. 

With  a  firm  faith  in  this  theory,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  he  often  manifests  annoyance  at  the  slowness 
of  the  bourgeoisie  in  carrying  out  the  part  assigned 
them  in  the  Marxian  program.  They  do  not  dis- 
appear fast  enough,  nor  do  they  show  any  eagerness 
to  take  sides  either  with  the  proletariat  or  with  the 
capitalists.  On  the  contrary,  they  view  both  with 
a  certain  distrust  and  antipathy,  and  maintain  a 
curious  confidence  in  their  ability  to  manage  both 
factions  in  the  future  as  they  have  in  the  past.  In 
short,  they  are  not  a  negligible  quantity,  but  hold 
the  balance  of  power,  at  least  for  the  present,  and 
can  retard  or  accelerate  the  progress  of  Socialism 
to  a  considerable  though  an  indefinite  extent. 

Obviously,  if  the  middle  class  as  a  whole  is  to  be 
converted  to  Socialism,  it  must  be  by  different 
arguments  than  those  found  effective  with  the 
proletariat.  The  Manifesto  does  not  appeal  to 
them,  because  they  have  more  to  lose  than  their 
"chains."  There  must  be  something  more  alluring 
than  a  universal  competency  and  a  steady  job  to 
arouse  them  to  the  need  of  radical  changes. 

The  sight  of  capitalists  excites  emulation  and 
ambition  rather  than  hatred  and  despair.  A  man 

[106] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

is  not  inclined  to  vote  millionaires  out  of  existence 
so  long  as  he  cherishes  a  secret  hope  of  becoming 
one.  They  do  not  see  the  proletarian  papers  and 
would  be  repelled  by  them  if  they  did. 

Wells's  outline  of  the  form  that  middle-class 
propaganda  should  take  presents  several  novel  and 
interesting  points,  but  the  most  conspicuous  is  his 
discussion  of  the  effect  of  Socialism  on  family  re- 
lations. His  frankness  and  honesty  in  bringing 
that  question  into  the  open  is  in  commendable  con- 
trast with  the  tendency  of  most  advocates  of  Social- 
ism to  conceal  or  minimize  the  fact  that  any  such 
profound  rearrangement  of  economic  relations  as  is 
involved  in  Socialism  must  inevitably  affect  the 
family,  because  the  economic  factor  in  this  institu- 
tion is  undeniably  great,  although  how  great  is  a 
matter  of  dispute. 

Wells  boldly  attempts  to  convert  a  prejudice  into 
an  argument  by  appealing  to  the  very  classes  which, 
it  is  generally  supposed,  would  be  repelled  by  the  bare 
mention  of  the  subject,  to  save  the  family  from  its 
impending  disintegration  by  adopting  Socialism. 

That  Wells  is  right  in  thinking  that  the  problem 
of  the  family  is  a  serious  one  at  the  present  time  is 
clearly  shown  by  the  statistics  collected  by  Sidney 
Webb  for  the  Fabian  Society.  He  proves  : 

[107] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

That  the  decline  in  the  birthrate  which  is  depriving 
England  and  Wales  of  at  least  one-fifth  of  every 
year's  normal  crop  of  babies  is  not  accounted  for 
by  any  alteration  in  the  age,  sex  or  marital  condition 
of  the  population,  by  any  refusal  or  postponement  of 
marriage,  or  by  any  of  the  effects  of  "urbanization" 
or  physical  deterioration  of  sections  of  the  com- 
munity. The  statistical  evidence  points,  in  fact, 
unmistakably  to  the  existence  of  a  volitional  regu- 
lation of  the  marriage  state  that  is  now  ubiquitous 
throughout  England  and  Wales  among,  apparently, 
a  large  majority  of  the  population. 


So  much  other  statisticians  have  deduced,  but 
Mr.  Webb  went  farther  and  obtained  a  direct  proof 
of  his  conclusion  by  the  circulation  of  several  hun- 
dred question  blanks  among  middle-class  families. 
The  results  are  startling.  Out  of  a  total  of  one 
hundred  and  twenty  families  reporting  in  one  cate- 
gory, there  were  only  seven  in  which  the  number  of 
children  was  not  intentionally  limited.  The  average 
number  of  children  in  such  limited  families  is  one 
and  a  half,  which  is  only  one  third  what  it  was 
twenty-five  years  ago.  In  about  sixty  per  cent  of 
the  cases  "the  poverty  of  the  parents  in  relation  to 
their  standard  of  comfort"  was  a  cause  in  the  limi- 
tation of  the  family. 

This  shows  how  important  a  factor  the  increased 
expense  of  raising  children  has  become  in  well-to-do 

[108] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

families,  and  unless  the  population  of  the  future  is 
to  be  recruited  very  largely  by  the  improvident, 
ignorant,  and  debased,  it  points  toward  some  form 
of  state  encouragement  of  the  production  of  well- 
born children.  Wells  suggested  a  differential  in- 
come tax.  Doctor  Galton  advocated  the  endow- 
ment of  gifted  parents.  The  war  has  brought 
this  question  out  of  the  realm  of  speculative  con- 
troversy into  that  of  practical  necessity.  Some  of 
the  remedies  proposed  now  make  the  measures 
suggested  by  Wells  ten  years  before  seem  timid 
and  conservative. 

His  early  training  in  dynamical  physics  and 
evolutionary  biology  furnished  him  with  the  modern 
scientific  point  of  view  when  he  entered  upon  the 
old  battlegrounds  of  sociology  and  metaphysics. 
He  therefore  never  could  believe  in  a  static  state, 
socialistic  or  other,  and  he  saw  clearly  that  much 
of  what  passes  for  sound  philosophical  reasoning  is 
fallacious,  because  the  world  cannot  be  divided  up 
into  distinct  things  of  convenient  size  for  handling, 
each  done  up  in  a  neat  package  and  plainly 
labeled  as  formal  logic  requires.  Here  he  is  ex- 
tremely radical,  going  quite  as  far  as  Bergson 
in  his  anti-intellectualism  though  attacking  the 
subject  in  a  very  different  way.  He  denies  the 

[109] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

categories,  the  possibility  of  number,  definition, 
and  classification.1  He  brings  three  charges 
against  our  Instrument  of  Knowledge :  first, 
that  it  can  work  only  by  disregarding  individu- 
ality and  treating  uniques  as  identically  similar 
objects  in  this  respect  or  that;  and,  second, 
that  it  can  only  deal  freely  with  negative  terms 
by  treating  them  as  though  they  were  positive; 
and,  third,  that  the  sort  of  reasoning  which  is 
valid  for  one  level  of  human  thought  may  not  work 
at  another.  No  two  things  are  exactly  alike,  and 
when  we  try  to  define  a  class  of  varied  objects  we 
get  a  term  which  represents  none  of  them  exactly 
and  may  therefore  lead  to  an  erroneous  conclusion 
when  brought  back  again  to  a  concrete  case.  Or, 
as  Wells  puts  it  in  his  laboratory  language:  "The 
forceps  of  our  minds  are  clumsy  forceps  and  crush 
the  truth  a  little  in  taking  hold  of  it."  "Of  every- 
thing we  need  to  say  this  is  true,  but  it  is  not  quite 
true." 

What  the  artist  long  ago  taught  us,  that  there 
are  no  lines  in  nature,  the  scientist  has  come  to  be- 

1  He  has  given  three  statements  of  his  views  on  this  point :  First, 
in  an  article,  "Rediscovery  of  the  Unique",  in  Fortnightly  Review, 
July,  1891;  second,  in  a  paper  read  to  the  Oxford  Philosophical  Society 
and  published  in  Mind,  XIII,  No.  51,  and  as  an  appendix  to  "A  Modern 
Utopia";  and,  third,  in  Book  I  of  "First  and  Last  Things." 

[HP] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

lieve,  and  perhaps  in  time  the  logicians  will  come  to 
see  it  too.  At  present,  however,  they  are,  as  Wells 
says,  in  that  stage  of  infantile  intelligence  that  can- 
not count  above  two.  This  is  amusingly  illustrated  in 
a  defense  of  logic  by  Mr.  Jourdain  in  which  he  says  : 1 

To  these  strictures  of  Mr.  Wells  on  logic  we  may 
reply,  it  seems  to  me,  that  either  they  are  psycho- 
logical —  in  which  case  they  are  irrelevant  to  logic 
—  or  they  are  false.  Thus  the  principle  that  "no 
truth  is  quite  true",  implying  as  it  does  that  itself 
is  quite  true,  implies  its  own  falsehood,  and  is  there- 
fore false. 

This  sort  of  thing  might  have  passed  as  a  good 
joke  in  the  days  of  Epimenides,  the  Cretan,  when 
logic  was  a  novelty,  and  people  amused  themselves, 
like  boys  learning  to  lasso,  in  tripping  each  other  up 
with  it.  But  it  is  funny  to  see  this  ancient  weapon 
of  scholasticism  brought  out  to  ward  off  the  attacks 
of  modernism,  such  attacks  from  without  the  ram- 
parts as  Wells's  essay  and  from  within  as  F.  C.  S. 
Schiller's  big  volume,  "Formal  Logic." 

Wells  has  not  only  the  sense  of  continuity  in  space, 
but,  what  is  rarer,  the  sense  of  continuity  in  time. 
"The  race  flows  through  us,  the  race  is  the  drama  and 
we  are  the  incidents.  This  is  not  any  sort  of  poetical 

1  "Logic,  M.  Bergson  and  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells",  by  Philip  E.  B.  Jourdain 
in  Hibbert  Journal,  X,  p.  835. 

[HI] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

statement:  it  is  a  statement  of  fact."  "We  are 
episodes  in  an  experience  greater  than  ourselves." 

There  is  a  desperate  sincerity  about  the  man  that 
I  like.  He  seems  always  to  be  struggling  to  express 
himself  with  more  exactness  than  language  allows, 
to  say  neither  more  nor  less  than  he  really  believes 
at  the  time.  I  do  not  think  that  he  takes  delight 
in  shocking  the  bourgeoisie  as  Shaw  does.  Wells 
would  rather,  I  believe,  agree  with  other  people 
than  disagree.  He  is  not  a  congenital  and  inveterate 
nonconformist.  But  he  insists  always  on  "paint- 
ing the  thing  as  he  sees  it."  His  later  novels  have 
come  under  the  ban  of  the  British  public  libraries 
because,  conceiving  sex  as  a  disturbing  element  in 
life,  he  put  it  into  his  novels  as  a  disturbing  ele- 
ment, thus  offending  both  sides,  those  of  puritanical 
temperament  who  wanted  it  left  out  altogether  and 
those  of  profligate  temperament  who  wanted  to 
read  of  amorous  adventure  with  no  unpleasant 
facts  obtruded.  His  sociological  works,  in  which, 
while  insisting  on  permanent  monogamy  as  the 
ideal,  he  prophesied  that  the  future  would  show 
greater  toleration  toward  other  forms  of  marital 
relationship,  aroused  less  criticism  than  the  frank 
portrayal  of  existing  conditions  in  his  novels. 

All  his  longer  novels  are  largely  concerned  with 

[H2] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

the  problem  of  marital  life  but  the  only  one  of  them 
that  comes  near  to  a  solution  is  that  entitled  "Mar- 
riage." The  couple  in  this  case,  the  Traffords,  are 
exceptionally  decent  people  for  characters  in  a 
modern  novel,  and  if  their  marriage  is  not  a  success 
it  is  not  on  account  of  any  interference  from  a  third 
party,  but  rather  because  of  the  cares  and  compli- 
cations that  come  from  family  life  and  financial 
prosperity.  The  heroine  is  a  charming  specimen 
of  the  modern  young  woman,  educated  at  "Ox- 
bridge", whose  chief  fault  is  a  constitutional  in- 
ability to  keep  her  accounts  straight.  She  spends 
money  with  excellent  taste,  but  without  regard  to 
her  husband's  bank  balance.  Consequently  Traf- 
ford  has  to  lay  aside  his  researches  in  molecular 
physics  to  work  out  a  successful  process  for  syn- 
thetic rubber  —  easy  to  a  man  of  his  ability. 

Mr.  Wells  apparently  adopts  the  theory  formu- 
lated by  Professor  Devine,  of  Columbia,  as  to  the 
normal  division  of  labor  between  husband  and  wife, 
that  men  should  be  experts  in  the  art  of  getting 
money  and  women  experts  in  the  art  of  spending  it. 
Where  both  parties  fail  is  in  regarding  these  duties 
as  ends  in  themselves,  the  men  getting  absorbed  in 
business  and  the  women  buying  things  that  they 
do  not  want,  that  nobody  needs,  just  for  the  sake 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

of   buying.     Apparently    Mr.    Wells    has    hope    of 
curing  the  men,  but  none  of  curing  the  women. 

Premature  attempts  at  realization,  the  demand 
for  immediate  results,  the  disregard  of  purely  scientific 
research,  the  swamping  of  life  by  restless  activity 
and  futile  efforts  at  reform,  these  are  the  ailments 
of  the  modern  world,  according  to  our  author.  His 
satire  spares  neither  conservatives  nor  radicals. 
The  following  passage  would  apply  to  New  York  as 
well  as  London : 

London,  of  course,  is  always  full  of  Movements. 
Essentially  they  are  absorbents  of  superfluous  fem- 
inine energy.  They  have  a  common  flavor  of 
progress  and  revolutionary  purpose,  and  common 
features  in  abundant  meetings,  officials,  and  organi- 
zation generally.  Few  are  expensive  and  still  fewer 
produce  any  tangible  results  in  the  world.  They 
direct  themselves  at  the  most  various  ends :  the 
poor,  that  favorite  butt,  either  as  a  whole  or  in  such 
typical  sections  as  the  indigent  invalid  or  the  indi- 
gent aged,  the  young,  public  health,  the  woman's 
cause,  the  prevention  of  animal  food,  anti-vivisec- 
tion, the  gratuitous  advertisement  of  Shakespeare 
(that  neglected  poet),  novel  but  genteel  modifications 
of  medical  or  religious  practice,  dress  reform,  the 
politer  aspects  of  socialism,  the  encouragement  of 
aeronautics,  universal  military  service,  garden  sub- 
urbs, domestic  arts,  proportional  representation, 
duodecimal  arithmetic,  and  the  liberation  of  the 
drama.  They  range  in  size  and  importance  from 
campaigns  on  a  Plessingtonian  scale  to  sober  little 


H.  G.   WELLS 

intellectual  Beckingham  things  that  arrange  to  meet 
half  yearly  and  die  quietly  before  the  second  as- 
sembly. If  Heaven  by  some  miracle  suddenly  gave 
every  Movement  in  London  all  it  professed  to  want, 
our  world  would  be  standing  on  its  head  and  every- 
thing would  be  extremely  unfamiliar  and  disconcert- 
ing. But,  as  Mr.  Roosevelt  once  remarked,  the 
justifying  thing  about  life  is  the  effort  and  not  the 
goal,  and  few  Movements  involve  any  real  and  im- 
passioned struggle  to  get  to  the  ostensible  object. 
They  exist  as  an  occupation ;  they  exercise  the 
intellectual  and  moral  activities  without  undue 
disturbance  of  the  normal  routines  of  life.  In  the 
days  when  everybody  was  bicycling  an  ingenious 
mechanism  called  Hacker's  home  bicycle  used  to  be 
advertised.  Hacker's  home  bicycle  was  a  stand 
bearing  small  rubber  wheels,  upon  which  one  placed 
one's  bicycle  (properly  equipped  with  a  cyclometer) 
in  such  a  way  that  it  could  be  mounted  and  ridden 
without  any  sensible  forward  movement  whatever. 
In  bad  weather,  or  when  the  state  of  the  roads  made 
cycling  abroad  disagreeable,  Hacker's  home  bicycle 
could  be  placed  in  front  of  an  open  window  and 
ridden  furiously  for  any  length  of  time.  Whenever 
the  rider  tired,  he  could  descend  —  comfortably  at 
home  again  —  and  examine  the  cyclometer  to  see 
how  far  he  had  been.  In  exactly  the  same  way 
the  ordinary  London  Movement  gives  scope  for  the 
restless  and  progressive  impulse  in  human  nature 
without  the  risk  of  personal  entanglements  or  any 
inconvenient  disturbance  of  the  milieu.1 

To  accomplish   a   cure,   or  at  least  to  obtain   a 
diagnosis  of  the  evil,  Mr.  Wells  resorts  to  a  curious 

1  "Marriage,"  Duffield  and  Company,  1912. 

[115) 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

expedient  which  he  suggested  first  in  his  "Modern 
Utopia",  where  he  laid  down  as  one  of  the  rules 
of  his  new  order  of  Samurai  that  a  man  who  aspired 
to  be  a  leader  of  men  should  for  a  week  every  year 
go  off  into  the  desert  and  live  absolutely  alone, 
without  books  or  other  distractions  to  keep  him 
from  thinking.  But  in  "Marriage"  Mr.  Wells 
improves  upon  this  plan,  for  Trafford  and  his  wife 
go  into  the  wilds  of  Labrador  together.  "How 
sweet  is  solitude,"  as  the  Irishman  said,  "when  you 
have  your  sweetheart  with  you."  So,  indeed,  they 
found  it,  and  in  their  fight  with  cold,  starvation,  and 
wild  beasts  they  learned  how  to  found  their  love 
upon  mutual  comprehension  and  respect,  and  made 
of  their  marriage  a  true  union.  The  change  of 
heart  which  Trafford  experiences  is  not  altogether 
unlike  what  Christians  call  conversion.  His  line 
of  argument,  or,  more  properly  speaking,  develop- 
ment of  thought,  finds  expression  in  fragmentary 
sentences  muttered  in  the  delirium  of  fever,  a  Freu- 
dian emergence  of  fundamental  feelings,  as  in  the 
following  passage : 

"Of  course,"  he  said,  "I  said  it  —  or  somebody 
said  it  —  about  this  collective  mind  being  mixed 
with  other  things.  It's  something  arising  out  of 
life  —  not  the  common  stuff  of  life.  An  exhalation. 

[116] 


H.  G.   WELLS 

.  .  .  It's  like  the  little  tongues  of  fire  that  came 
at  Pentecost.  .  .  .  Queer  how  one  comes  drifting 
back  to  these  images.  Perhaps  I  shall  die  a  Chris- 
tian yet.  .  .  .  The  other  Christians  won't  like  me 
if  I  do.  What  was  I  saying  ?  .  .  .  It's  what  I 
reach  up  to,  what  I  desire  shall  pervade  me,  not 
what  I  am.  Just  as  far  as  I  give  myself  purely  to 
knowledge,  to  making  feeling  and  thought  clear  in 
my  mind  and  words,  to  the  understanding  and  ex- 
pression of  the  realities  and  relations  of  life,  just 
so  far  do  I  achieve  salvation.  .  .  .  Salvation !  .  .  . 

"I  wonder  is  salvation  the  same  for  every  one? 
Perhaps  for  one  man  salvation  is  research  and 
thought,  and  for  another  expression  in  art,  an*d  for 
another  nursing  lepers.  Provided  he  does  it  in  the 
spirit.  He  has  to  do  it  in  the  spirit.  .  .  . 

"This  flame  that  arises  out  of  life,  that  redeems 
life  from  purposeless  triviality,  isn't  life.  Let  me 
get  hold  of  that.  That's  a  point.  That's  a  very 
important  point." 

This  passage  from  "Marriage"  showed  that  in 
1912  Wells's  thought  was  entering  upon  a  new 
phase,  considerably  in  advance  of  that  revealed  in 
his  "First  and  Last  Things."  He  seemed  to  be 
working  toward  some  sort  of  belief  in  God,  a  Berg- 
sonian  God,  struggling  upward  in  spite  of  and  by 
means  of  inert  matter  and  recalcitrant  humanity.  It 
would  indeed  be  queer  to  find  Wells  not  only  among 
the  prophets,  but  among  the  Christian  prophets,  and, 
as  he  intimates,  some  of  the  other  Christians  would 
not  like  it. 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

Wells's  catholicity  of  sympathy  recognizes  no 
limitations  of  race.  He  has  an  abhorrence  for  race 
prejudice  of  every  kind.  The  greatest  blot  he 
found  upon  American  civilization  was  our  ill  treat- 
ment of  the  negro.1 

In  his  article  on  "Race  Prejudice"  he  puts  it 
foremost  among  the  evils  of  the  age  but  even  his 
"anticipations"  could  not  conceive  of  such  an 
insensate  revival  of  racial  animosity  between  civi- 
lized nations  as  the  Great  War  has.brought  about : 

Knight  errantry  is  as  much  a  part  of  a  wholesome 
human  being  as  falling  in  love  or  self-assertion,  and 
therein  lies  one's  hope  for  mankind.  Nearly  every 
one,  I  believe  —  I've  detected  the  tendency  in  old 
cheats  even  and  disreputable  people  of  all  sorts  — 
is  ready  to  put  in  a  little  time  and  effort  in  dragon- 
slaying  now  and  then,  and  if  any  one  wants  a  credit- 
able dragon  to  write  against,  talk  against,  study 
against,  subscribe  against,  work  against,  I  am  con- 
vinced they  can  find  no  better  one  —  that  is  to  say, 
no  worse  one  —  than  Race  Prejudice.  I  am  con- 
vinced myself  that  there  is  no  more  evil  thing  in  this 
present  world  than  Race  Prejudice;  none  at  all.  I 
write  deliberately  —  it  is  the  worst  single  thing  in 
life  now.  It  justifies  and  holds  together  more 
baseness,  cruelty  and  abomination  than  any  other 
sort  of  error  in  the  world.  Through  its  body  runs 

1  See  "The  Tragedy  of  Color",  chapter  xii  of  "The  Future  in 
America",  and  his  article  on  "Race  Prejudice",  in  The  Independent  of 
February  14,  1907. 

[118] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

the  black  blood  of  coarse  lust,  suspicion,  jealousy 
and  persecution  and  all  the  darkest  poisons  of  the 
human  soul.  It  is  this  much  like  the  dragons  of 
old,  that  it  devours  youth,  spoils  life,  holds  beautiful 
people  in  shame  and  servitude,  and  desolates  wide 
regions.  It  is  a  monster  begotten  of  natural  instincts 
and  intellectual  confusion,  to  be  fought  against  by 
all  men  of  good  intent,  each  in  our  own  dispersed 
modern  manner  doing  his  fragmentary,  inestimable 
share. 

The  abolition  of  hatred  between  castes  and  classes 
and  countries,  the  growth  of  toleration  and  exten- 
sion of  cooperation,  the  improvement  of  education, 
and  the  advancement  of  science,  are  what  will  lead 
toward  his  ideal.  And  his  ideal  is  that  of  an  evolu- 
tionist, the  opportunity  for  continuous  growth. 
He  has  exprest  it  best,  perhaps,  in  "The  Food  of 
the  Gods,"  in  the  speech  of  one  of  the  new  race  of 
giants,  of  supermen,  to  his  fellows  as  they  are  about 
to  give  battle  to  the  community  of  ordinary  people 
determined  to  destroy  them  : 

It  is  not  that  we  would  oust  the  little  people  from 
the  world  in  order  that  we,  who  are  no  more  than 
one  step  upward  from  their  littleness,  may  hold 
their  world  forever.  It  is  the  step  we  fight  for  and 
not  ourselves.  .  .  .  We  are  here,  Brothers,  to 
what  end  ?  To  serve  the  spirit  and  the  purpose  that 
has  been  breathed  into  our  lives.  We  fight  not  for 
ourselves  —  for  we  are  but  the  momentary  hands 
and  eyes  of  the  Life  of  the  World.  Through  us  and 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

through  the  little  folk  the  Spirit  looks  and  learns. 
From  us  by  word  and  birth  and  act  it  must  pass  — 
to  still  greater  lives.  This  earth  is  no  resting  place ; 
this  earth  is  no  playing  place,  else  indeed  we  might 
put  our  throats  to  the  little  people's  knife,  having 
no  greater  right  to  live  than  they.  And  they  in  their 
turn  might  yield  to  the  ants  and  vermin.  We  fight 
not  for  ourselves  but  for  growth,  growth  that  goes 
on  forever.  To-morrow,  whether  we  live  or  die, 
growth  will  conquer  through  us.  That  is  the  law 
of  the  spirit  forevermore.  To  grow  according  to 
the  will  of  God  !  To  grow  out  of  these  cracks  and 
crannies,  out  of  these  shadows  and  darknesses,  into 
greatness  and  the  light !  Greater,  he  said,  speaking 
with  slow  deliberation,  greater,  my  Brothers  !  And 
then  —  still  greater.  To  grow  and  again  —  to  grow. 
To  grow  at  last  into  the  fellowship  and  understanding 
of  God. 

The  Great  War  has  inspired  or  at  least  instigated 
many  works  of  fiction  already,  but  the  best  of  these, 
in  my  opinion,  is  Wells's  "Mr.  Britling  Sees  It 
Through."  It  does  not  deal  much  with  the  fight- 
ing at  the  front.  The  author  is  chiefly  concerned 
with  another  aspect  of  the  war,  its  effect  upon  the 
psychology  of  the  Englishman.  The  book  is  divided 
into  two  parts ;  the  first  half  is  light,  carefree  and 
amusing  after  the  manner  of  Wells's  earlier  romances  ; 
the  other  half  is  darkened  by  the  war  cloud  and  is 
written  with  more  emotional  power  than  he  has 
hitherto  shown. 

[120] 


H.   G.   WELLS 

Knowing  Wells's  habit  of  introducing  autobio- 
graphical details  into  his  romances,  we  inevitably 
surmise  that  Mr.  Britling  is  himself.  Mr.  Britling 
is  a  writer  whom  "lots  of  people  found  interesting 
and  stimulating,  and  a  few  found  seriously  exas- 
perating." "  He  had  ideas  in  the  utmost  profusion 
about  races  and  empires  and  social  order  and  polit- 
ical institutions  and  gardens  and  automobiles  and 
the  future  of  India  and  China  and  esthetics  and 
America  and  the  education  of  mankind  in  general. 
.  .  .  And  all  that  sort  of  thing." 

This  certainly  reads  like  Wells's  repertory  of 
ideas.  And  to  make  the  resemblance  closer  Mr. 
Britling  writes  a  pamphlet,  "And  Now  War  Ends", 
shortly  after  the  war  began  —  just  as  Mr.  Wells 
wrote  "The  War  That  Will  End  War."  Several 
of  the  characters  are  recognizable  as  Mr.  Wells' 
neighbors.  At  any  rate  we  may  be  sure  that  the 
book  reveals  the  changing  moods  not  only  of  the 
author  but  of  every  thinking  Englishman  as  the 
enormity,  the  awfulness,  the  all-pervasiveness  of  the 
war  became  slowly  realized  in  the  course  of  many 
months. 

As  a  contrast  to  his  typical  Englishman  Mr. 
Wells  brings  in  an  American,  handled  with  more 
skill  than  British  writers  usually  show  in  dealing 

[121] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

with  American  psychology.  The  delight  of  his 
Mr.  Direck  at  the  recognition  of  the  scenes  and 
customs  he  had  known  from  history  and  novels 
is  well  presented : 

The  Thames,  when  he  sallied  out  to  see  it,  had 
been  too  good  to  be  true,  the  smallest  thing  in  rivers 
he  had  ever  seen,  and  he  had  had  to  restrain  himself 
from  affecting  a  marked  accent  and  accosting  some 
passerby  with  the  question,  "Say!  But  is  this 
little  wet  ditch  here  the  Historical  River  Thames  ?" 
In  America,  it  must  be  explained,  Mr.  Direck  spoke 
a  very  good  and  careful  English  indeed,  but  he  now 
found  the  utmost  difficulty  in  controlling  his  im- 
pulse to  use  a  high-pitched  nasal  drone  and  indulge 
in  dry  Americanisms  and  poker  metaphors  upon  all 
occasions.  When  people  asked  him  questions  he 
wanted  to  say  "Yep"  or  "Sure",  words  he  would 
no  more  have  used  in  America  than  he  could  have 
used  a  bowie  knife.  But  he  had  a  sense  of  role.  He 
wanted  to  be  just  exactly  what  he  supposed  an 
Englishman  would  expect  him  to  be. 

Every  American  tourist  in  England  has  felt  this 
temptation.  He  also  has  the  experience  ascribed 
by  Mr.  Wells  to  his  American  of  finding  that  Eng- 
land on  closer  acquaintance  is  not  so  antiquated  as 
she  looks.  When  asked  what  his  impression  of 
England  is  Mr.  Direck  answers  : 

That  it  looks  and  feels  more  like  the  traditional 
Old  England  than  any  one  could  possibly  have  be- 

[122] 


H.  G.   WELLS 

lieved,  and  that  in  reality  it  is  less  like  the  traditional 
Old  England  than  any  one  would  ever  possibly  have 
imagined.  I  thought  when  I  lookea  out  of  the 
train  this  morning  that  I  had  come  to  the  England 
of  Washington  Irving.  I  find  that  it  is  not  even  the 
England  of  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward. 

To  complete  this  study  of  national  psychology 
there  is  also  a  German  in  the  family  circle  at  first, 
a  tutor  whose  hobbies  are  Ido  and  internationalism 
and  a  universal  index,  traits  drawn  from  Professor 
Ostwald  apparently.  He  is  not  caricatured  but  we 
suspect  that  like  Mr.  Direck,  the  American,  Herr 
Heinrich  is  affected  by  British  expectations  and 
appears  more  German  than  he  is. 

The  book  reechoes  all  the  passions  of  the  war,  — 
love,  hatred,  courage,  despair,  meanness,  sacrifice, 
heroism,  selfishness,  stoicism  and  mad  wrath,  —  but 
ends  upon  a  clear  religious  tone  such  as  has  been 
heard  but  faintly  in  any  work  of  Mr.  Wells  before. 
What  Mr.  Britling  sees  through  is  not  the  war,  for 
nobody  can  yet  see  so  far  as  that,  but  he  sees  through 
the  doubt  and  turmoil  of  his  own  mind  and  finds 
internal  peace  in  the  midst  of  warfare.  When  he 
sits  down  to  write  a  letter  to  the  parents  of  Hein- 
rich, who  like  his  own  son  had  fallen  in  France,  his 
mind  is  torn  by  conflicting  emotions,  but  finally  these 
are  resolved  into  one  common  chord  and  he  writes : 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

Religion  is  the  first  thing  and  the  last  thing,  and 
until  a  man  has  found  God  and  been  found  by  God, 
he  begins  at  no  beginning,  he  works  to  no  end.  He 
may  have  his  friendships,  his  partial  loyalties,  his 
scraps  of  honor.  But  all  these  things  fall  into  place 
and  life  falls  into  place  only  with  God.  Only  with 
God.  God,  who  fights  through  men  against  Blind 
Force  and  Night  and  Non-Existence ;  who  is  the 
end,  who  is  the  meaning.  He  is  the  only  King.  .  .  . 
Of  course  I  must  write  about  Him.  I  must  tell  all 
my  world  of  Him.  And  before  the  coming  of  the 
true  King,  the  inevitable  King,  the  King  who  is 
present  whenever  just  men  foregather,  this  blood- 
stained rubbish  of  the  ancient  world,  these  puny 
kings  and  tawdry  emperors,  these  wily  politicians 
and  artful  lawyers,  these  men  who  claim  and  grab 
and  trick  and  compel,  these  war  makers  and  op- 
pressors, will  presently  shrivel  and  pass  —  like 
paper  thrust  into  a  flame.  Our  sons  have  shown 
us  God. 


How  TO  READ  WELLS 

The  curious  thing  about  H.  G.  Wells  is  his  di- 
versity. For  a  person  of  any  intellectual  consistency 
it  is  impossible  thoroughly  to  appreciate  him  in 
certain  moods  without  disliking  him  in  others.  He 
is  the  stern  moralist  of  "The  Sleeper  Awakes", 
the  detached  and  exquisite  artist  of  "Thirty  Strange 
Stories"  and  "Tales  of  Space  and  Time",  the  genial 
and  conciliatory  sociologist  of  "New  Worlds  for 
Old",  the  intolerant  Imperialist  of  "Anticipations", 
the  subtle  anti-moralist  of  "The  New  Machiavelli" 
and  "Ann  Veronica",  the  sympathetic  if  somewhat 

[124] 


H.  G.   WELLS 

cynical  portrayer  of  the  shop-keeping  classes  of 
"Mr.  Polly"  and  "The  Wheels  of  Chance",  the 
vague  philosopher  at  large  of  "First  and  Last 
Things",  the  imaginative  rationalist  of  "A  Modern 
Utopia",  the  Jules-Vernish  romancer  of  "The  War  of 
Worlds"  and  "The  First  Men  in  the  Moon",  the 
scientific  transcendentalist  of  "The  Food  of  the 
Gods",  and  in  addition  he  seriously  chronicles 
"Floor  Games"  with  his  boys  and  takes  interest  in 
fugitive  essays  on  modern  warfare  and  "The  Misery 
of  Boots."  Unless  one  is  alien  to  everything  human 
(and  superhuman),  it  is  impossible  to  escape  being 
interested  in  at  least  some  of  these. 

Wells's  philosophy  is,  as  I  have  said,  expressed 
symbolically  in  many  of  his  stories.  It  is  most 
fully  explained  in  "First  and  Last  Things:  A  Con- 
fession of  Faith  and  a  Rule  of  Life"  (Putnam),  and 
in  the  two  essays  previously  referred  to,  "  Scepticism 
of  the  Instrument"  (in  "A  Modern  Utopia")  and 
"The  Discovery  of  the  Future",  first  published  in 
Nature,  February  6,  1902,  and  in  the  "Report  of 
the  Smithsonian  Institution",  1902,  and  later  in 
book  form  (Huebsch,  New  York,  1913). 

His  sociological  studies  comprise  the  following 
volumes:  "Anticipations"  (1901,  Harper),  "Man- 
kind in  the  Making"  (1903,  Scribner),  "A  Modern 
Utopia"  (1904,  Scribner),  "The  Future  in  America" 
(1906,  Harper),  "New  Worlds  for  Old"  (1908, 
Macmillan),  "Socialism  and  the  Great  State",  with 
the  collaboration  of  fourteen  other  authors  (1911, 
Harper),  "Social  Forces  in  England  and  America" 
(1914,  Harper),  published  in  England  under  the 
title  "An  Englishman  Looks  at  the  World"  (Cas- 
sell),  "The  War  That  Will  End  War"  (1915),  "What 
Is  Coming  ?"  (1916,  Macmillan),  "  Italy,  France  and 

[125] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

Britain  at  War"  (1917,  Macmillan),  and  "God  the 
Invisible  King"  (1917,  Macmillan). 

His  short  stones  have  been  collected  in  several 
different  volumes,  in  part  overlapping:  "Thirty 
Strange  Stories"  (1898,  Harper),  "Tales  of  Time 
and  Space"  (1899,  Doubleday),  "Twelve  Stories 
and  a  Dream"  (1903,  Scribner),  "The  Planner 
Story  and  Others"  (1897,  Macmillan),  "The  Stolen 
Bacillus  and  Other  Incidents"  (1895,  Macmillan). 

Eight  of  the  best  of  his  short  stories  (including 
"The  Star",  "Armageddon"  and  "The  Country 
of  the  Blind")  are  published  in  a  sumptuous  edition 
with  Coburn's  photographic  illustrations  by  Mitchell 
Kennerley  ("The  Door  in  the  Wall  and  Other 
Stories",  1911). 

His  romances  include:  "The  Time  Machine" 
(1895,  Holt),  "The  Wonderful  Visit"  (1895),  "The 
Island  of  Dr.  Moreau"  (1896,  Duffield),  "The 
War  of  the  Worlds"  (1898,  Harper),  "The  Invisible 
Man"  (1897,  Harper),  "The  Sea-Lady"  (1902) 
"The  First  Men  in  the  Moon"  (1901),  "When  the 
Sleeper  Wakes"  (1899,  Harper),  rewritten  (1911) 
as  "The  Sleeper  Awakes"  (Nelson,  London),  "In 
the  Days  of  the  Comet"  (1906,  Century),  "The 
Food  of  the  Gods"  (1904,  Scribner),  "The  War  in 
the  Air"  (1908,  Macmillan),  "The  World  Set  Free" 
(1914,  Macmillan). 

His  novels  fall  naturally  into  two  classes  :  first 
those  of  a  lighter  and  humorous  character :  "The 
Wheels  of  Chance"  (1896,  Macmillan),  "Love  and 
Mr.  Lewisham"  (1900,  Stokes),  "Kipps"  (1906, 
Scribner),  "The  History  of  Mr.  Polly"  (1910, 
Duffield),  "Bealby"  (1915,  Macmillan),  "Boon" 
etc.  (1915,  Doran). 

His  longer  and  more  serious  novels  are:     "Ann 

[126] 


H.  G.  WELLS 

Veronica"  (1909,  Harper),  "The  New  Machiavelli" 
(1910,  Duffield),  "Tono-Bungay"  (1908,  Duffield), 
"Marriage"  (Duffield),  "The  Passionate  Friends" 
(1913,  Harper),  "The  Wife  of  Sir  Isaac  Harmon" 
(1914,  Macmillan),  "The  Research  Magnificent" 
(1915,  Macmillan),  "Mr.  Britling  Sees  It  Through" 
(1916,  Macmillan). 

To  these  we  must  add  some  early  works :  a 
"Textbook  on  Biology"  in  two  volumes  (1892) 
and  two  volumes  of  essays,  "Select  Conversations 
with  an  Uncle"  (1895,  Saalfield)  and  "Certain  Per- 
sonal Matters"  (1897).  He  has,  like  Stevenson, 
devoted  much  attention  to  devising  floor  games  for 
children  and  has  published  two  books  upon  it : 
"  Floor  Games  "  and  "  Little  Wars  "  (Small,  Maynard) . 

Wells  still  awaits  his  Boswell,  but  we  have  "The 
World  of  H.  G.  Wells"  by  Van  Wyck  Brooks 
(1915,  Kennerley),  a  lively  and  appreciative  critique, 
and  "H.  G.  Wells,  A  Biography  and  a  Critical 
Estimate  of  his  Work"  by  J.  D.  Beresford  (1915, 
Holt),  still  briefer,  equally  interesting,  and  contain- 
ing a  list  of  his  writings  to  date.  An  autobio- 
graphical sketch  was  written  for  the  Russian  edition 
of  his  works  (1909)  and  published  in  T.  P.'s  Maga- 
zine (1912). 

Of  magazine  articles  and  critiques  the  following 
have  for  one  reason  or  another  special  interest : 

"Les  Idees  de  Wells  sur  1'Humanite  future"  by 
Charles  Duguet  in  Revue  des  Idees,  1908. 

"Wells"  by  Chesterton  in  American  Magazine, 
vol.  71,  p.  32  (1910). 

"Wells  and  his  Point  of  View"  in  Catholic  World, 
vol.  91  (four  articles,  1910). 

"Wells  and  Bergson"  by  P.  E.  B.  Jourdain  in 
Hibbert  Journal,  vol.  10,  p.  835,  July,  1912. 

[127] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

"H.  G.  Wells  et  la  Pensee  contemporaine"  by 
Rene  Leguy  in  Mercure  de  France  (1912). 

The  contributions  of  Mr.  Wells  to  current  maga- 
zines and  newspapers  are  too  numerous  to  enumerate, 
but  I  must  not  omit  the  two  articles  on  Socialism 
which  he  contributed  to  The  Independent,  October 
25  and  November  3,  1906,  and  an  article  on  "The 
Nature  of  Love"  (The  Independent,  August  13, 
1908). 


[128] 


CHAPTER  III 

G.  K.  CHESTERTON 
KNIGHT  ERRANT  OF  ORTHODOXY 

The  central  truth  to  be  uttered  about  Mr.  Ches- 
terton is  that  he  is  the  greatest  prophet  of  our 
generation.  He  is  as  great  as  Tolstoy  or  Ibsen.  It 
may  seem  rash  to  set  him  beside  these  great  prophets, 
but  time  will  ratify  my  rashness.  A  prophet  is  a 
man  of  genius  with  a  spiritual  message  for  his  age. 

The  spiritual  message  delivered  by  Mr.  Chester- 
ton is  mightier  than  any  other  sounding  in  our  ears. 
He  is  a  bigger  man  than  Maeterlinck  or  Bergson, 
though  we  know  it  not.  As  a  prophet  he  is  larger 
in  every  way  than  Mr.  Shaw  or  Mr.  Wells  or  Mr. 
Arnold  Bennett,  because  he  deals  with  the  soul, 
whereas  they  deal  with  the  soul's  environment. 
They  deal  with  man  as  a  social  animal.  He  deals 
with  man  as  a  spiritual  being. 

Our  failure  to  salute  the  prophet  is  complete,  and 
it  is  emphasized  by  our  failure  to  perceive  that  he 
is  the  authentic  voice  of  that  English  soul  which  is 
now  wrestling  with  the  Teutonic  soul  for  the  soul 
of  the  world.  He  is  the  soul  of  England.  —  James 
Douglas  in  the  Observer,  1916. 

CAN  a  journalist  have  a  philosophy  of  life,  and  if 
so  would  it  be  worth  talking  about  ?  In  answer 

[129] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

to  the  first  question  I  shall  quote  Chesterton  to  the 
effect  that  everybody  has  a  philosophy,  even  generals 
and  journalists.  To  prove  the  affirmative  of  the 
second  I  shall  present,  as  Exhibit  B,  the  whole  body 
of  Chesterton's  works.  Perhaps  the  most  heretical 
passage  of  his  book  on  "Heretics"  was  that  which 
begins : 

But  there  are  some  people,  nevertheless  —  and 
I  am  one  of  them  —  who  think  that  the  most  practi- 
cal and  important  thing  about  a  man  is  still  his  view 
of  the  universe.  We  think  that  for  a  landlady 
considering  a  lodger,  it  is  important  to  know  his 
income,  but  still  more  important  to  know  his  phi- 
losophy. We  think  that  for  a  general  about  to  fight 
an  enemy,  it  is  important  to  know  the  enemy's 
numbers,  but  still  more  important  to  know  the 
enemy's  philosophy.  We  think  the  question  is  not 
whether  the  theory  of  the  cosmos  affects  matters, 
but  whether,  in  the  long  run,  anything  else  affects 
them. 

Like  many  other  things  in  Chesterton's  works 
this  does  not  sound  so  heretical  now  as  when  it  was 
written,  about  the  time  when  the  weary  old  world 
had  finished  Chapter  XIX  of  the  second  volume  of 
his  history  and  had  turned  over  the  page  in  hopes  of 
finding  something  new  and  exciting  in  Chapter  XX 
—  and  found  it.  Chesterton's  countrymen  then 
were  keeping  careful  count  of  Germany's  soldiers 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

and  ships,  but  they  were  contentedly  ignorant  of 
German  philosophy.  But  as  soon  as  the  war  broke 
out  they  began  with  feverish  haste  to  translate  and 
study  Treitschke,  Nietzsche,  Bernhardi,  and  any 
other  books  which  might  throw  light  upon  the 
German  Weltanschauung^  but  which  in  the  leisurely 
days  of  peace  they  had  no  time  to  read. 

It  is  convenient  to  compare  Shaw  and  Chesterton 
because  they  are  antithetic  in  temperament  and 
opinion  and  represent  two  opposite  currents  of 
modern  thought.  Shaw  stands  for  the  earlier 
rationalistic,  socialistic  revolt  against  the  conven- 
tions of  society.  Chesterton  stands  for  the  later 
conservative  reaction  to  all  this,  for  ecclesiasticism, 
nationalism,  and  traditionalism.  Shaw  is  a  vege- 
tarian and  teetotaler.  Chesterton  is  quite  the 
opposite ;  he  champions  the  public  house  as  a  good 
old  English  institution.  Shaw  is  a  suffragist; 
Chesterton  is  dead  set  against  anything  of  the  kind. 
Shaw  came  from  the  most  pronounced  Protestant 
stock,  the  Ulster  kind,  and,  as  we  can  see  from  his 
introduction  to  "Androcles  and  the  Lion",  he  has 
constructed  a  sort  of  religion  for  himself,  though  he 
could  hardly  be  accounted  orthodox.  Chesterton 
is  a  Catholic,  though  of  the  Anglican  rather  than  the 
Roman  variety,  a  champion  of  orthodoxy,  and  a 

[131] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

defender  of  all  forms  of  ritualism  and  medievalism. 
Chesterton  makes  it  his  business  to  find  a  logical 
basis  for  popular  traditions,  customs,  and  super- 
stitions which  have  always  been  regarded  as  purely 
irrational  and  arbitrary  even  by  those  who  liked 
them  and  defended  them  as  poetic  and  conforming 
to  a  deeper  reality  than  that  of  reason.  Shaw  is 
always  showing  how  absurd  and  illogical  are  the 
soundest  axioms  and  the  most  unquestioned  plati- 
tudes, whether  of  orthodox  conservative  or  orthodox 
revolutionary  thought.  Chesterton  discovers  new 
reasons  in  things ;  Shaw  discovers  new  unreasons 
in  things. 

Chesterton  appears  in  the  capacity  of  permanent 
minority  leader.  But  this  is  in  respect  to  that 
really  small  minority  of  professional  writers,  speakers, 
and  agitators  who  set  the  fashions  for  the  Zeitgeist. 
Actually  he  has  the  backing  of  the  great  inarticulate 
immobile  mass  of  the  people. 

Chesterton  has  discovered  how  to  be  witty  though 
orthodox.  But  his  orthodoxy  is  so  extreme  that  it 
seems  heterodoxy  to  most  of  us.  Perhaps  that 
accounts  for  his  success  in  making  it  sound  para- 
doxical. As  Wesley  determined  that  the  devil 
had  no  right  to  all  the  pretty  music,  so  Chesterton 
determined  that  the  iconoclasts  should  not  monopo- 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

lize  all  the  cleverness.  His  orginality  consists  in 
his  genius  for  turning  platitudes  into  epigrams. 
He  can  put  the  most  unquestioned  axiom  in  a  way 
to  shock  the  world.  If  he  is  right  in  what  he  says 
in  his  books  on  Watts  that  "there  is  only  one  thing 
that  requires  real  courage  to  say  and  that  is  a 
truism",  Chesterton  must  be  the  bravest  man  alive. 
But  even  he  finds  it  necessary  to  promulgate  his 
truisms  in  the  disguise  of  sensational  novelties. 

Chesterton's  ideal  is  a  complete  democracy,  not 
merely  democracy  in  politics  but  democracy  in 
science,  religion,  literature,  sport,  and  art.  If  you 
say  this  is  impracticable  he  doubtless  would  retort 
that  it  was  the  essence  of  an  ideal  to  be  impracti- 
cable, otherwise  it  would  be  confounded  with  dull 
reality.  He  always  champions  the  opinion  of  the 
many  against  that  of  the  few,  the  laymen  against 
the  expert. 

Once  men  sang  together  round  a  table  in  chorus ; 
now  one  man  sings  alone,  for  the  absurd  reason  that 
he  can  sing  better.  If  scientific  civilization  goes  on 
(which  is  most  improbable)  only  one  man  will 
laugh  because  he  can  laugh  better  than  the  rest. 
-"Heretics." 

It  was  absurd  to  say  that  Waterloo  was  won  on 
Eton  cricket  fields.  But  it  might  have  fairly  been 
said  that  Waterloo  was  won  on  the  village  green, 
where  clumsy  boys  played  a  very  clumsy  cricket. 

[133] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

...  It  is  a  good  sign  in  a  nation  when  such  things 
are  done  badly.  It  shows  that  all  the  people  are 
doing  them.  And  it  is  a  bad  sign  in  a  nation  when 
such  things  are  done  very  well,  for  it  shows  that  only 
a  few  experts  and  eccentrics  are  doing  them  and  that 
the  nation  is  merely  looking  on.  —  "All  Things 
Considered." 

On  this  ground  he  hated  Germany  even  before 
the  war,  as  a  nation  ruled  by  experts.  He  denounced 
its  workingmen's  insurance,  its  governmental  ef- 
ficiency, its  higher  criticism,  and  the  like.  "I  am 
all  for  German  fantasy,  but  I  will  resist  German 
earnestness  till  I  die.  I  am  all  for  Grimm's  Fairy 
Tales ;  but  if  there  is  such  a  thing  as  Grimm's  Law, 
I  would  break  it  if  I  knew  what  it  was."  l 

It  is  on  the  basis  of  democracy  that  he  defends 
religion : 

That  Christianity  is  identical  with  democracy  is 
the  hardest  of  gospels :  there  is  nothing  that  so 
strikes  men  with  fear  as  that  they  are  all  sons  of 
God.  —  "Twelve  Types." 

It  is  obvious  that  tradition  is  only  democracy 
extended  through  time.  It  is  trusting  to  a  consensus 
of  common  human  voices  rather  than  to  some  iso- 
lated or  arbitrary  record.  The  man  who  quotes 
some  German  historian  against  the  tradition  of  the 
Catholic  Church,  for  instance,  is  strictly  appealing 
to  aristocracy.  He  is  appealing  to  the  superiority 

1  "The  Crimes  of  England",  p.  98. 
[134] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

of  one  expert  against  the  awful  authority  of  a  mob. 
It  is  quite  easy  to  see  why  a  legend  is  treated  and 
ought  to  be  treated  more  respectfully  than  a  book  of 
history.  The  legend  is  generally  made  by  the 
majority  of  people  in  a  village,  who  are  sane.  The 
book  is  generally  written  by  the  one  man  in  the 
village  who  is  mad.  ...  If  we  attach  great  im- 
portance to  the  opinion  of  ordinary  men  in  great 
unanimity  when  dealing  with  daily  matters,  there 
is  no  reason  why  we  should  disregard  it  when  we  are 
dealing  with  history  or  fable.  Tradition  may  be 
defined  as  an  extension  of  the  franchise.  Tradition 
means  giving  votes  to  the  most  obscure  of  all  classes 
—  our  ancestors.  It  is  the  democracy  of  the  dead. 
.  .  .  Democracy  tells  us  not  to  neglect  a  good 
man's  opinion,  even  if  he  is  our  groom :  tradition 
asks  us  not  to  neglect  a  good  man's  opinion,  even 
if  he  is  our  father.  —  "Orthodoxy." 

I  expect  some  time  to  find  Chesterton  defending 
the  Trinity  on  the  ground  that  it  is  more  democratic 
than  Mohammedan  monotheism,  a  sort  of  com- 
mission government  extended  to  the  universe. 

Chesterton  has  the  true  artist's  love  for  the  in- 
dividual and  the  concrete.  He  delights  in  clear 
outlines  and  bright  colors.  He  thinks  in  pictures. 
I  have  never  seen  any  of  his  painting,  but  he  must 
have  the  color  sense  strongly  developed.  He  will 
halt  in  a  stern  chase  or  in  the  height  of  an  argument 
to  describe  a  sunset  with  the  most  chromatic  lan- 
guage at  his  command.  He  studied  art  at  the 

[135] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

Slade  School  in  London,  and  although  he  was  soon 
switched  off  into  journalism  he  still  reverts  to  the 
pencil  on  occasion.  He  has  supplied  the  illustra- 
tions to  three  of  Belloc's  books;  "The  Great  En- 
quiry", "The  Green  Overcoat",  and  "Emmanuel 
Burden."  l  The  last,  a  satire  on  imperialistic 
financiering,  is  one  of  the  cleverest  pieces  of  irony  to 
be  found  in  all  literature,  but  it  raises  the  question 
of  whether  the  ironical  tone  can  be  sustained  through 
a  whole  volume  without  a  decline  of  interest.  When 
the  question  of  illustration  arose  Chesterton  sent  out 
for  a  bundle  of  wrapping  paper,  and  in  the  course 
of  one  evening  drew  all  of  the  portraits  in  the  book 
as  well  as  a  lot  that  were  not  used. 

For  the  understanding  of  Chesterton's  romances 
it  is  necessary  to  remember  that  the  more  non- 
sensical they  seem,  the  more  sense  they  have  in 
them.  This  is  because  when  he  gets  blinded  by  a 
big  idea  he  sees  men  as  concepts  walking.  He  is 
too  much  of  a  Platonist  to  be  a  good  novelist.  He 
admires  Dickens  but  never  imitates  him,  for  Ches- 
terton's stories  are  singularly  devoid  of  individuals. 
All  the  little  variations  and  accidental  peculiarities 
that  make  a  type  into  a  person  in  the  great  novels 

1  For  specimens  of  his  sketches  see  "Chesterton  as  an  Artist"  by 
Joseph  B.  Gilder  in  The  Bookman. 

[136] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

of  the  world  are  lacking.  In  "The  Ball  and  the 
Cross"  Mac  Ian  is  simply  the  archetype  of  the 
Catholic  Romanticist  and  Turnbull  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary Rationalist.  Neither  of  them  ever  does 
anything  out  of  character,  but  then  neither  of  them 
has  any  character  outside  of  the  Idea  that  made 
them  what  they  are.  Each  falls  in  love  with  a  girl 
of  the  opposite  type,  drawn  to  scale.  This  is  carried 
farther  yet  by  the  introduction  of  an  incredibly 
consistent  Tolstoyan  and  a  Nietzschean  beside 
whom  Nietzsche  would  seem  all  too  human.  Thus 
the  whole  book  is  balanced  and  matched  like  old- 
fashioned  wall  paper  or  an  Italian  garden. 

Manalive  comes  closer  to  being  real.  He  cer- 
tainly is  alive,  but  he  is  not  a  man;  he  is  an  ideal, 
Chesterton's  superman.  "All  habits  are  bad  hab- 
its" is  the  text  of  G.  K.  Chesterton's  "Manalive", 
which  proved  as  delightful  to  his  admirers  and  dis- 
tasteful to  his  antipathists  as  any  of  his  former 
productions.  In  his  essays  Mr.  Chesterton's  method 
is  first  to  set  down  something  that  sounds  like  a  wild 
absurdity  and  then  to  argue  the  reader  into  the  ad- 
mission —  cheerful  or  indignant,  according  to  his 
temperament  —  that  it  is  a  very  sensible  thing  after 
all.  In  his  romances  his  method  is  essentially  the 
same.  Nobody  could  act  crazier  than  Mr.  Innocent 

[137] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

Smith  in  the  first  chapters  of  this  volume,  but  in 
the  end  he  is  proved,  by  a  long  legal  process,  to  be 
the  only  really  sane  man  of  the  lot.  He  is  accused 
of  about  as  many  crimes  as  the  hero  of  Jokai's  tale, 
"The  Death's  Head",  confessed  to,  but  he  turns 
out  to  be  quite  as  guiltless.  Charges  of  murder, 
burglary,  bigamy,  and  kidnaping,  amply  certifi- 
cated, slip  off  him  like  water  off  a  duck's  back. 
Neither  prison  nor  asylum  can  hold  Manalive. 
Smith's  theory  is  that  if  you  keep  the  command- 
ments, you  may  violate  the  conventions ;  which, 
being  the  reverse  of  the  ordinary  rule  of  procedure, 
gets  him  into  all  sorts  of  misunderstandings.  He 
had  evidently  read  Schopenhauer's  theory  that  the 
only  happiness  is  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  and,  what 
is  more,  he  acts  upon  it  by  letting  go  what  he  most 
delights  in  that  he  may  recapture  it.  He  goes  round 
the  world  in  search  of  his  own  home,  and  his  series 
of  amorous  adventures  are  conducted  in  strict 
accord  with  monogamous  morality.  By  getting 
outside  of  himself  he  can  gain  the  joy  of  coveting 
his  own  possessions.  The  economic  law  of  dimin- 
ishing returns  applies  to  all  our  habitual  pleasures, 
and  to  escape  it  we  must  be  continually  seeking 
new  investments. 

So  Manalive  is  distinguished  from  ordinary  men 
[138] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

in  that  he  has  legs  that  he  uses.  He  is  not  rooted. 
He  breaks  out  and  runs  around  and  discovers  the 
most  novel  and  wonderful  things  in  the  most  com- 
monplace environment. 

Mr.  Chesterton  is  as  fond  of  a  chase  as  a  fox 
hunter  or  a  kinetoscope  man.  We  have  it  in  "Man- 
alive"  as  we  have  it  in  "The  Man  Who  Was  Thurs- 
day" and  "The  Ball  and  the  Cross."  As  usual  he 
stops  every  little  while  and  paints  a  cloudscape  to 
rest  our  eyes ;  and  all  along  he  enlivens  the  way  by 
epigrams  and  inverted  proverbs.  Here  are  a  few : 

When  men  are  weary  they  fall  into  anarchy ;  but 
when  they  are  gay  and  vigorous  they  invariably 
make  rules.  We  are  never  free  until  some  institu- 
tion frees  us ;  and  liberty  cannot  exist  until  it  is 
declared  by  authority. 

For  she  was  one  of  those  women  who  at  bottom 
regard  all  men  as  equally  mad,  wild  animals  of  some 
utterly  separate  species. 

Though  she  never  spoke  she  always  looked  as  if 
she  might  speak  any  minute.  Perhaps  this  is  the 
very  definition  of  a  companion. 

All  that  the  parsons  say  is  unproved.  All  that 
the  doctors  say  is  disproved.  That's  the  only  dif- 
ference between  science  and  religion  there's  ever 
been  or  ever  will  be. 

The  academic  mind  reflects  infinity,  and  is  full 
of  light  by  the  simple  process  of  being  shallow  and 
standing  still. 

With  our  weak  spirits  we  should  grow  old  in 
eternity,  if  we  were  not  kept  young  by  death. 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

Providence  has  to  cut  immortality  into  lengths  for 
us,  as  nurses  cut  the  bread  and  butter  into  fingers. 

The  most  fantastic  and  therefore  characteristic  of 
Chesterton's  romances  is  "The  Man  Who  Was 
Thursday"  which  the  French  are  able  more  concisely 
to  entitle  Nomme  Jeudi.  The  author  calls  it  "A 
Nightmare",  and  it  is.  The  only  books  to  compare 
with  it  are  George  Macdonald's  "Lilith",  Strind- 
berg's  "Dream  Plays",  and  Andreyev's  "Masked 
Ball";  but  for  wild  imagining,  grotesquerie,  farci- 
cality, and  swift  transformations  it  cannot  be 
matched.  It  is  a  detective  story,  a  motion-picture 
chase,  and  a  system  of  theology,  all  in  one.  Like 
all  dreams,  according  to  Freud,  it  is  symbolic, 
but  the  symbolism  is  not  to  be  interpreted  in  the 
usual  Freudian  way,  for  Chesterton  is  clean-minded. 
The  clue  to  it  is  to  be  found  in  his  earliest  book  of 
essays,  "The  Defendant",  when  he  argues  for  the 
moral  value  of  the  detective  story  in  the  following 
fashion:  "By  dealing  with  the  unsleeping  sentinels 
who  guard  the  outposts  of  society,  it  tends  to 
remind  us  that  we  live  in  an  armed  camp,  making 
war  upon  a  chaotic  world,  and  that  the  criminals, 
the  children  of  chaos,  are  nothing  but  traitors 
within  our  gates." 

The  detective,  he  says,  who  stands  alone  and  fear- 
[140] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

less  amid  the  knives  and  fists  of  a  thieves'  kitchen, 
is  the  original  and  poetic  figure,  and  the  criminals 
surrounding  him  represent  cosmic  conservatism. 
But  in  "The  Man  Who  Was  Thursday"  each  one 
of  the  six  detectives,  separately  commissioned  by 
the  mysterious  head  of  the  secret  police  to  enter 
the  inner  circle  of  seven  anarchists,  believes  him- 
self to  be  fighting  single-handed  for  law  and  order 
against  a  criminal  conspiracy  to  destroy  civilization. 
The  seven  pseudo-anarchists  go  through  all  sorts 
of  perilous  and  absurd  adventures  in  the  course  of 
which  they  are  metamorphosed  successively  into 
the  seven  days  of  the  week,  the  seven  days  of  crea- 
tion, the  seven  orders  of  created  things,  and  the 
seven  angels  of  heaven.  Finally  seated  upon  seven 
thrones,  robed  in  state,  blazoned  —  of  course,  since 
it  is  Chesterton  —  with  heraldic  devices,  they 
recognize  one  another  as  friends  and  allies  through 
all  their  strange  strife.  It  reminds  one  of  Emer- 
son's Brahma:  "If  the  red  slayer  thinks  he  slays." 
But  Chesterton  is  too  much  of  a  Manichean  to  let 
it  go  at  that.  One  of  the  anarchists  turns  out  to  be 
genuine,  the  only  real  one  in  the  world,  the  irrecon- 
cilable rebel,  the  Eternal  Anarchist,  the  spirit  that 
continually  denies,  the  leader  of  His  Majesty's  Op- 
position. In  some  ways  Chesterton's  conception 

[141] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

of  the  devil  reminds  one  of  Andreyev's  "Anathema" 
or  perhaps  rather  of  the  Satan  whom  Dostoievsky 
introduces  into  his  "Brothers  Karamazarov."  Ches- 
terton's mind  seems  to  have]  a  curious  affinity  to 
the  Russian,  though  so  far  as  I  remember  his  writ- 
ings show  no  evidence  of  being  influenced  by  Rus- 
sian literature. 

"The  Man  Who  Was  Thursday"  affects  readers 
variously.  To  some  it  seems  ridiculous ;  to  others 
blasphemous.  Julius  West,  usually  sympathetic, 
dismisses  it  in  his  biography  of  Chesterton  as  in- 
comprehensible and  tiresome.  Yet  three  people 
I  know  —  a  man,  a  woman,  and  a  child  —  con- 
sider it  one  of  the  most  wonderful  books  in  the 
world,  and  know  it  almost  by  heart. 

My  own  opinion  is  that  it  shows  that  Chesterton 
has  not  yet  found  the  true  medium  for  the  expression 
of  his  genius.  Drawing  and  writing  are  too  slow 
and  cold  to  give  scope  to  his  pictorial  imagination. 
He  should,  like  D'Annunzio,  take  to  the  screen. 
"The  Man  Who  Was  Thursday"  would  make  a 
magnificent  scenario  as  it  stands,  and  Chesterton 
could  then  add  all  of  the  things  he  thought  of  or  saw 
while  composing  it  but  could  not  put  into  words. 

Blake,  too,  was  a  man  who  would  have  done 
wonders  with  the  cinematograph  if  it  had  only 

[142] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

been  invented  sooner.  Chesterton,  in  his  sketch 
of  Blake,  explains  his  difficulties  of  expression  by 
word  and  picture : 

How  shall  we  manage  to  state  in  an  obvious  and 
alphabetical  manner  the  ultimate  query,  the  primor- 
dial pivot  on  which  the  whole  modern  problem  turns  ? 
It  cannot  be  done  in  long  rationalistic  words :  they 
convey  by  their  very  sound  the  suggestion  of  some- 
thing subtle.  One  must  try  to  think  of  something 
in  the  way  of  a  plain  street  metaphor  or  an  obvious 
analogy.  For  the  thing  is  not  too  hard  for  human 
speech :  it  is  actually  too  obvious  for  human  speech. 

Chesterton's  theory  of  the  use  of  symbolism, 
even  absurd  symbolism,  is  given  in  his  "Defense 
of  Nonsense", 

Every  great  literature  has  always  been  alle- 
gorical —  allegorical  of  some  view  of  the  whole 
universe.  The  Iliad  is  only  great  because  all  life 
is  a  battle,  the  Odyssey  because  all  life  is  a  journey, 
the  Book  of  Job  because  all  life  is  a  riddle.  .  .  . 

Nonsense  and  faith  (strange  as  the  conjunction 
may  seem)  are  the  two  supreme  symbolic  assertions 
of  the  truth  that  to  draw  out  the  soul  of  things  with 
a  syllogism  is  as  impossible  as  to  draw  out  Leviathan 
with  a  hook. 

Chesterton  at  the  beginning  of  his  career  wrote 
"A  Defense  of  Detective  Stories"  1  and  he  has  since 
shown  that  he  knows  how  to  write  them,  in  the 

1  See  also  "The  Divine  Detective"  in  "A  Miscellany  of  Men." 
[143] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

collections  entitled  "The  Club  of  Queer  Trades", 
"The  Innocence  of  Father  Brown",  and  "The 
Wisdom  of  Father  Brown."  But  they  are  different 
from  ordinary  detective  stories  not  merely  because 
a  mild-mannered  priest  takes  the  place  of  Sherlock 
Holmes  but  more  because  they  frequently  have 
nothing  to  do  with  crime  and  all  parties  turn  out, 
as  in  "Thursday",  to  have  the  best  of  intentions, 
whatever  their  actions.  Chesterton's  method  in 
these  stories  is  much  the  same  as  he  employs  in  his 
essays ;  that  is,  he  piles  up  paradoxical  impossi- 
bilities, and  then  by  some  simple  expedient  resolves 
them  into  apparent  reasonableness.  The  author's 
obvious  enjoyment  of  his  own  ingenuity  adds  to  the 
reader's  delight.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know 
whether  he  has  in  mind  the  solution  when  he  lays 
out  the  plot  or  whether  he  is  not  playing  a  game  with 
himself  like  jackstraws,  pitting  his  skill  as  a  disen- 
tangler  against  a  muddle  of  his  own  making. 

As  an  artist  Chesterton  has  always  been  attracted 
by  the  Orient,  with  its  mystical  fanaticisms,  its 
cruel  colors,  and  its  unfamiliar  habits  of  thought. 
But  while  Turkey  is  all  very  well  at  a  distance, 
Turkey  in  Europe  is  to  him  a  distinct  and  horrible 
menace.  In  "The  Flying  Inn"  we  have  a  story  of 
Mohammedan  influence  not  only  in  Europe  but  in 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

England  itself.  This  novel  is  an  allegory  of  the 
war  between  the  sacred  symbol  of  the  cross  and  the 
sacred  symbol  of  the  crescent,  as  Chesterton  has 
similarly  related  the  struggle  of  the  Ball  and  the 
Cross  in  his  book  of  that  name. 

The  champions  of  the  crescent  are  Misysra  Am- 
mon,  the  Prophet  of  the  Moon,  and  Lord  Ivywood, 
an  eccentric  nobleman,  a  fanatic  against  the  liquor 
traffic  as  the  embodiment  of  Christian  custom  as 
opposed  to  Moslem.  Misysra,  who  is  as  fertile 
with  impossible  theories  as  with  plausible  arguments 
to  support  them,  maintains  that  England  is  Mo- 
hammedan at  heart  and  proves  it  in  a  hundred 
ways  from  the  contempt  with  which  the  pig  is 
popularly  spoken  of  to  the  absence  of  any  "idola- 
trous" animal  or  vegetable  forms  in  modern  cubist 
painting.  Lord  Ivywood's  persecution  of  the  inn- 
keepers sends  one  of  them  adrift  throughout  the 
country  carrying  his  inn-sign  with  him  and  accom- 
panied by  Captain  Dalroy,  an  athletic  Irishman 
who  champions  the  cause  of  the  cross. 

So  far  we  have  a  straight  Chesterton  novel,  a 
symbolic  theme  variegated  by  satires  on  modern 
life.  But  Chesterton  really  seems  uncertain  that 
he  aimed  to  write  a  prose  novel  at  all,  for  the  book 
is  plentifully  interspersed  with  verses,  serious, 

[1451 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

comic,  ironical,  militant,  in  good  meter  and  in  bad, 
till  the  novel  takes  on  the  not  unpleasant  appear- 
ance of  a  Chesterton  anthology  of  songs. 

Everybody  who  likes  G.  K.  Chesterton  has 
wished  that  he  might  be  induced  to  follow  the 
example  of  Charles  Dickens  and  write  a  Child's 
History  of  England.  When  a  literary  man  of  way- 
ward genius  undertakes  to  interpret  and  record 
the  story  of  his  country  the  result  is  almost  always 
worth  while.  We  do  not  get  the  white  sunlight  of 
impartiality,  but  we  get  a  beautiful  rainbow  of 
prejudices,  personal  opinions,  and  mystical  insight. 
Chesterton  has  still  to  write  us  a  complete  English 
history,  but  he  has  dealt  faithfully  with  about  a 
century  and  a  half  of  it  in  "The  Crimes  of  England." 
It  is  due  to  him  to  say  that  the  unhistorical  character 
of  the  work  is  caused  rather  by  partisan  emphasis 
than  by  any  inaccuracy  of  detail.  Rarely  if  ever 
has  Chesterton  written  with  such  care  for  his  facts, 
and,  as  for  his  transcendental  interpretation  of 
them,  he  has  as  much  warrant  to  philosophize  as 
Carlyle  or  Taine  or  any  other  literary  historian.  But 
one  does  tend  to  get  the  impression  from  the  book 
that  only  Prussians  had  ever  incurred  the  scrip- 
tural curse  on  him  who  removes  his  neighbor's 
landmark. 

[146] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

For  the  "crimes  of  England"  are  really  the 
crimes  of  Prussia,  and  England's  guilt  is  summed 
up  in  the  phrase  that  English  politics  has  been  de- 
voted ever  since  the  time  of  Frederick  the  Great  to 
"the  belittlement  of  France  and  the  gross  exaggera- 
tion of  Germany."  Chesterton  denounces  the  part 
played  by  his  country  in  the  wars  of  Frederick  the 
Great,  in  the  Napoleonic  struggles,  in  the  repression 
of  Ireland,  in  tolerating  Bismarck's  schemes  of 
aggrandizement,  only  to  bring  into  darker  relief 
the  wickedness  of  the  state  which  used  England 
throughout  all  these  years  as  a  catspaw.  Yet  the 
indictment  of  England  as  Prussia's  accomplice  is 
delivered  in  very  sharp  terms ;  so  far  as  Chesterton 
shows  bias  it  is  pro-French  or  pro-Irish  rather  than 
pro-British.  He  really  believes  that  the  war  is  an 
epic  struggle  between  the  old  soul  of  Christendom, 
most  clearly  incarnated  in  the  Catholic  nations, 
and  a  blast  of  sinister  materialism  from  the  wastes 
and  forests  of  Brandenburg.  In  this  belief  he 
writes  not  only  seriously,  but  soberly,  as  befits  the 
great  hour,  and  concludes  his  book  with  a  vivid 
and  moving  description  of  the  Battle  of  the  Marne 
which  has  in  it  a  world  of  eloquence  and  no  "clever- 
ness" at  all. 

The  large  volume  of  "Criticisms  and  Apprecia- 
[1471 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

tions  of  Dickens"  is  composed  of  his  prefaces  to 
the  separate  books  of  Dickens.  Although  not  so 
important  a  piece  of  work  as  Chesterton's  biography 
of  Dickens,  they  are  well  worth  bringing  together 
in  this  way,  because  they  form  not  only  a  brilliant 
piece  of  literary  interpretation,  but  because  they 
show  that  it  is  possible  to  write  prefaces  to  the  classics 
which  will  increase  the  desire  to  read  the  book  in- 
stead of  dampening  one's  ardor  at  the  start  with  a 
mass  of  dry  and  trivial  details  of  the  author's  life 
and  environment.  Chesterton  has  the  first  requisite 
of  a  good  introducer,  an  enthusiasm  for  his  subject 
and  a  belief  in  the  importance  of  his  message  for  the 
times  in  which  we  live.  His  comparison  of  Dickens 
and  Thackeray,  if  not  quite  fair,  has  at  least  suffi- 
cient point  to  suggest  thought. 

Thackeray  has  become  classical ;  but  Dickens 
has  done  more ;  he  has  remained  modern.  There 
was  a  painful  moment  (somewhere  about  the  eighties) 
when  we  watched  anxiously  to  see  whether  Dickens 
was  fading  from  the  modern  world.  We  have 
watched  a  little  longer,  and  with  great  relief  we  begin 
to  realize  that  it  is  the  modern  world  that  is  fading. 
All  that  universe  of  ranks  and  respectabilities  in 
comparison  with  which  Dickens  was  called  a  carica- 
turist, all  that  Victorian  universe  in  which  he  seemed 
vulgar  —  all  that  is  itself  —  breaking  up  like  a 
cloud-land.  And  only  the  caricatures  of  Dickens 
remain  like  things  carved  in  stone. 

[148] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

But  whether  his  medium  is  fiction,  criticism,  or 
editorial,  Chesterton  is  always  a  moralist,  differing, 
however,  from  most  moralists  in  that  he  is  never 
prosy  and  never  directs  his  preachments  at  obsolete 
evils  and  deceased  sinners. 

Prose  and  poetry  are  such  widely  sundered  fields 
that  a  reputation  made  in  one  does  not  carry  over 
into  the  other.  When  Scott  dropped  poetry  to  take 
up  novel  writing  he  found  it  expedient  to  leave  his 
name  behind.  When  Kipling  passed  in  the  reverse 
direction  from  prose  to  poetry  he  had  to  cultivate 
a  new  clientele.  It  is  very  amusing  to  hear  two  lovers 
of  Hardy  or  of  Meredith  sing  peans  of  praise  to  their 
favorite  author  in  strophe  and  antistrophe  until 
on  descending  from  the  general  to  the  particular 
they  discover  that  one  was  extolling  the  poet  and 
the  other  the  novelist  and  that  each  had  never  read, 
or  but  lightly  esteemed  what  the  other  most  admired. 

So  while  the  essays  and  romances  of  Gilbert 
Keith  Chesterton  reach  thousands  of  readers  week 
by  week  through  the  journals,  and  are  bought  with 
avidity  in  volume  form,  his  poems  are  but  little 
known  to  readers  of  his  prose,  although  they  have, 
I  fancy,  a  circle  of  their  own.  Yet  no  one  can  un- 
derstand Chesterton  fully  who  ignores  his  verse, 
for  his  thought,  expressed  through  this  medium,  is 

[H9] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

seen  from  another  angle  and  so  gains  solidity  to  the 
view. 

Chesterton,  like  Tennyson,  has  taken  one  of 
England's  legendary  heroes  as  the  theme  of  an  epic 
by  which  to  express  his  philosophy  of  life  and  his 
message  to  his  age.  The  stories  of  Alfred  he  accepts 
as  uncritically  and  handles  as  freely  as  Tennyson 
did  those  of  Arthur,  but  the  poems  resultant  show 
not  merely  the  difference  between  the  authors,  but 
also,  in  a  way,  the  difference  between  the  past 
century  and  the  present  one,  the  contrast  between 
a  faintly  hopeful  agnosticism  and  a  robustious 
affirmation  of  faith. 

In  his  "Alarms  and  Discursions"  he  has  told  us 
in  prose  of  the  impressions  made  upon  him  by  his 
visit  to  the  Vale  of  the  White  Horse  and  Ethandune. 
These  he  transmutes  into  poetry  in  "The  Ballad  of 
the  White  Horse."  l  In  the  beautiful  dedication 
to  his  wife  he  gives  her  credit  for  having  opened  his 
eyes  to  the  Christian  significance  of  the  wars  of 
Alfred  against  the  Danes.  Miss  Frances  Blogg, 
whom  he  married  in  1900,  was  described  by  one 
who  knew  her  then  as  "a  conservative  rebel  against 
the  conventions  of  the  unconventional."  We  may 
assume  that  it  was  largely  through  her  influence  that 

'Published,  1911,  by  John  Lane  Co.,  New  York. 
[ISO] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

he  was  converted  from  youthful  atheism  to  ex- 
tremest  orthodoxy.  I  can  quote  only  a  few  stanzas 
from  this  dedication  although  such  fragments  are 
distressing  to  those  who  know  the  whole  and  ag- 
gravating to  those  who  do  not. 

Lady,  by  one  light  only 

We  look  from  Alfred's  eyes, 
We  know  he  saw  athwart  the  wreck 
The  sign  that  hangs  about  your  neck, 
Where  One  more  than  Melchizedek 

Is  dead  and  never  dies. 

Therefore  I  bring  these  rimes  to  you, 

Who  brought  the  cross  to  me, 
Since  on  you  flaming  without  flaw 
I  saw  the  sign  that  Guthrum  saw 
When  he  let  break  his  ships  of  awe, 

And  laid  peace  upon  the  sea. 

Do  you  remember  when  we  went 
Under  a  dragon  moon, 
And  'mid  volcanic  tints  of  night 

Walked  where  they  fought  the  unknown 
fight 

And  saw  black  trees  on  the  battle-height, 
Black  thorn  on  Ethandune  ? 

And  I  thought  "  I  will  go  with  you, 

As  man  with  God  has  gone, 
And  wander  with  a  wandering  star, 
The  wandering  heart  of  things  that  are, 
The  fiery  cross  of  love  and  war 

That  like  your  self  goes  on." 


SIX  MAJOR   PROPHETS 

O  go  you  onward,  where  you  are 

Shall  honor  and  laughter  be, 
Past  purpled  forest  and  pearled  foam, 
God's  winged  pavilion  free  to  roam, 
Your  face,  that  is  a  wandering  home, 
A  flying  home  to  me. 


Up  through  an  empty  house  of  stars 

Being  what  heart  you  are, 
Up  the  inhuman  steeps  of  space 
As  on  a  staircase  go  in  grace, 
Carrying  the  firelight  on  your  face 

Beyond  the  loneliest  star. 

It  is  hard  to  carry  the  ballad  meter  through  a 
whole  volume  without  its  growing  monotonous. 
Chesterton's  poetry,  like  his  prose,  should  be  taken 
in  small  doses.  "The  Ballad  of  the  White  Horse" 
contains  some  wearisome  stretches,  particularly  in 
the  most  exciting  parts,  the  fights.  When  I  want 
real  zest  in  blood  letting  and  the  enjoyment  of  hand 
to  hand  combat  I  should  turn  to  Percy's  Reliques, 
or  to  Homer.  My  volume  of  the  "  Ballad  "  opens 
easiest,  as  it  has  opened  oftenest,  at  three  passages. 
The  first  is  that  where  King  Alfred  as  a  fugitive 
in  the  forest  is  set  to  mind  the  cakes  and  gets  to 
musing,  not,  as  we  children  used  to  be  told,  about 
how  to  beat  the  Danes,  but,  according  to  the 
Chestertonian  version,  about  the  Christian  view  of 

[152] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

the  labor  question.  As  the  old,  bent  woman  leaves 
the  hut  Alfred  wonders  what  shall  become  of  such 
as  she. 

And  well  may  God  with  the  serving-folk 

Cast  in  His  dreadful  lot : 
Is  not  He  too  a  servant 

And  is  not  He  forgot  ? 

For  was  not  God  my  gardener 

And  silent  like  a  slave : 
That  opened  oaks  on  the  uplands 

Or  thicket  in  graveyard  grave  ? 

And  was  not  God  my  armorer, 

All  patient  and  unpaid, 
That  sealed  my  skull  as  a  helmet 

And  ribs  for  hauberk  made  ? 


For  God  is  a  great  servant 

And  rose  before  the  day, 
From  some  primordial  slumber  torn ; 
But  all  things  living  later  born 
Sleep  on,  and  rise  after  the  morn, 

And  the  Lord  has  gone  away. 

On  things  half  sprung  from  sleeping, 

All  sleepy  suns  have  shone ; 
They  stretch  stiff  arms,  the  yawning  trees, 
The  beasts  blink  upon  hands  and  knees, 
Man  is  awake  and  does  and  sees  — 

But  Heaven  has  done  and  gone. 


[153] 


SIX  MAJOR   PROPHETS 

But  some  see  God  like  Guthrum 
Crowned,  with  a  great  beard  curled, 

But  I  see  God  like  a  good  giant, 
That,  laboring,  lifts  the  world. 

Wherefore  was  God  in  Golgotha, 

Slain  as  a  serf  is  slain : 
And  hate  He  had  of  prince  and  peer, 
And  love  He  had  and  made  good  cheer 
Of  them  that,  like  this  woman  here, 

Go  powerfully  in  pain. 

But  whether  Alfred  pondered  problems  of  war  or 
labor  the  cakes  got  burnt  just  the  same. 

Next  I  turn  to  the  page  where  men  come  to  Al- 
fred on  the  island  of  Athelney  and  beg  him  to  be- 
come the  ruler  of  all  England.  This  gives  Chesterton 
a  chance  to  expound  his  anti-imperialism. 

And  Alfred  in  the  orchard, 

Among  apples  green  and  red, 
With  the  little  book  in  his  bosom, 

Looked  at  green  leaves  and  said : 

"When  all  philosophies  shall  fail, 

This  word  alone  shall  fit ; 
That  a  sage  feels  too  small  for  life, 

And  a  fool  too  large  for  it. 

"Asia  and  all  imperial  plains 
Are  all  too  little  for  a  fool : 
But  for  one  man  whose  eyes  can  see, 

[154] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

The  little  island  of  Athelney 
Is  too  large  a  land  to  rule. 
******* 

"An  island  like  a  little  book, 

Full  of  a  hundred  tales, 
Like  the  gilt  page  the  good  monks  pen 
That  is  all  smaller  than  a  wren, 
Yet  hath  high  towers,  meteors  and  men, 

And  suns  and  spouting  whales. 

"A  land  having  a  light  in  it, 

In  a  river  dark  and  fast, 
An  isle  with  utter  clearness  lit, 
Because  a  saint  has  stood  in  it, 
Where  flowers  are  flowers  indeed  and  fit, 

And  trees  are  trees  at  last." 

As  his  men  clear  the  weeds  from  the  White  Horse 
that  had  ages  before  been  cut  upon  the  chalk  bluff, 
Alfred  has  a  vision  of  the  day  when  the  ancient 
symbol  shall  be  again  overgrown  and  forgotten  and 
when  a  new  and  less  manly  kind  of  heathen  than 
the  Danes  shall  overrun  England  : 

I  know  that  weeds  shall  grow  in  it 

Faster  than  man  can  burn  : 
And  though  they  scatter  now  and  go, 
In  some  far  century,  sad  and  slow, 
I  have  a  vision,  and  I  know 

The  heathen  shall  return. 

They  shall  not  come  with  war-ships, 
They  shall  not  waste  with  brands, 

[•55] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

But  books  be  all  their  eating, 
And  ink  be  on  their  hands. 


The  dear  sun  dwarfed  of  dreadful  suns, 

Like  fiercer  flowers  on  stalk, 
Earth  lost  and  little  like  a  pea, 
In  high  heaven's  towering  forestry 
—  These  be  the  small  weeds  ye  shall  see 

Crawl,  covering  the  chalk. 
******* 

By  terror  and  the  cruel  tales 

Of  curse  in  bone  and  kin, 
By  weird  and  weakness  winning, 
Accursed  from  the  beginning, 
By  detail  of  the  sinning, 

And  denial  of  the  sin  : 

By  thought  a  crawling  ruin, 

By  life  a  leaping  mire, 
By  a  broken  heart  in  the  breast  of  the  world, 

And  the  end  of  the  world's  desire : 

By  God  and  man  dishonored, 

By  death  and  life  made  vain, 
Know  ye  the  old  barbarian, 

The  barbarian  come  again. 

When  is  great  talk  of  trend  and  tide, 

And  wisdom  and  destiny, 
Hail  that  undying  heathen 

That  is  sadder  than  the  sea. 

In  this  specification  of  "the  marks  of  the  Beast" 
we  may  recognize   Chesterton's   antipathies ;     ma- 

[156] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

terialism,  commercialism,  Darwinism,  imperialism, 
cosmopolitanism,  pacifism,  and  Socialism.  He  is 
haunted  by  the  same  nightmare  as  Samuel  Butler, 
that  the  day  may  come  when  machines  will  master 
the  world  and  men  be  merely  their  slaves.  For 
relief  he  looks  to  a  revolution  like  the  French  Revo- 
lution, only  worse.  Chesterton  is  like  the  Eton 
boys  who,  after  a  debate  over  woman  suffrage, 
passed  a  unanimous  resolution  disapproving  of  the 
aim  of  the  suffragettes  but  approving  of  their 
methods.  The  socialists  say  we  must  have  a  revo- 
lution, peaceful  if  possible.  Chesterton  would  say, 
"we  must  have  a  revolution,  bloody  if  possible." 
The  guillotine,  he  says  somewhere,  had  many  sins 
to  answer  for,  but,  at  least,  there  was  nothing  evolu- 
tionary about  it.  And  he  makes  the  English  people 
say: 

It  may  be  we  shall  rise  the  last  as  Frenchmen  rose 

the  first. 
Our  wrath  come  after  Russia's  wrath  and  our  wrath 

be  the  worst. 

Like  Hilaire  Belloc  and  other  Neo-Catholics,  he 
manages  somehow  to  combine  an  admiration  for  the 
French  Revolution  with  a  devotion  to  Catholicism. 
They  are  ardent  advocates  of  democracy  notwith- 
standing the  very  explicit  condemnations  of  popular 

[157] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

government  by  the  Popes.  They  are  more  inclined 
toward  syndicalism  than  Socialism  and  place  their 
hopes  in  the  peasant  proprietorship  instead  of  in  the 
nationalized  trust.  It  is  an  interesting  novelty  in 
the  labor  problem,  for  it  cuts  across  the  old  classifica- 
tions, and  I  hope  it  will  have  a  chance  to  develop 
into  something  concrete.  The  similar  movement 
in  France,  the  Sillon  of  Marc  Sangnier,  was  crushed 
out  by  a  papal  encyclical  in  1912.  Chesterton 
might  be  called  an  English  Sillonist,  and  in  a  literal 
sense  if  we  recall  his  essay  on  The  Furrows  in  "Alarms 
and  Discursions."  Chesterton  sometimes  praises  the 
achievements  of  modern  science  and  industry,  but  al- 
ways as  ingenious  toys.  He  is  convinced  that  man- 
kind in  the  mass  will  never  take  the  city  seriously. 

When  the  rest  of  the  world  was  looking  for  the 
advent  of  cosmopolitanism  and  the  reign  of  peace, 
the  earth  lapped  in  universal  law  and  all  the  local 
idiosyncrasies  ironed  out,  wherein  all  obstacles  to 
freedom  of  movement  had  been  crushed  out  and  one 
could  buy  a  tourist  ticket  to  Timbuktu  with  the 
same  accommodation  all  along  the  route,  Chester- 
ton set  his  bugle  to  his  lips  and  blew  a  fanfare  of 
audacious  challenge  to  the  spirit  of  the  times  in  the 
form  of  a  nonsensical  romance,  "The  Napoleon  of 
Netting  Hill."  In  this  he  carries  particularism 

[158] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

to  an  extreme,  breaking  up  London  again  into  war- 
ring wards,  each  with  its  own  banner  and  livery,  its 
gilds  and  folk  ways.  The  book  is  inscribed,  as 
we  might  expect,  to  his  friend,  Hilaire  Belloc,  and 
I  quote  part  of  the  dedication  as  it  sums  up  the 
message  of  the  volume  and  is  strangely  prophetic : 

For  every  tiny  town  or  place 

God  made  the  stars  especially : 
Babies  look  up  with  owlish  face 

And  see  them  tangled  in  a  tree ; 
You  saw  a  moon  from  Sussex  Downs, 

A  Sussex  moon,  untraveled  still. 
I  saw  a  moon  that  was  the  town's, 

The  largest  lamp  on  Campden  Hill. 

Yes,  Heaven  is  everywhere  at  home, 

The  big  blue  cap  that  always  fits, 
And  so  it  is  (be  calm ;  they  come 

To  goal  at  last,  my  wandering  wits), 
So  it  is  with  the  heroic  thing 

This  shall  not  end  for  the  world's  end, 
And  though  the  sullen  engines  swing, 

Be  you  not  much  afraid,  my  friend. 

This  did  not  end  by  Nelson's  urn 

Where  an  immortal  England  sits  — 
Nor  where  your  tall  young  men  in  turn 

Drank  death  like  wine  at  Austerlitz. 
And  when  the  pedants  bade  us  mark 

What  cold  mechanic  happenings 
Must  come;  our  souls  said  in  the  dark, 

"Belike;  but  there  are  likelier  things." 

[1591 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

Likelier  across  these  flats  afar, 

These  sulky  levels  smooth  and  free, 
The  drums  shall  crash  a  waltz  of  war 

And  Death  shall  dance  with  Liberty ! 
Likelier  the  barricades  shall  flare 

Slaughter  below  and  smoke  above, 
And  death  and  hate  and  hell  declare 

That  men  have  found  a  thing  to  love.1 

Remember  this  was  written  in  1904,  at  a  time 
when  it  was  commonly  thought  that  the  last  of  the 
wars  had  been  fought  and  the  nations  might  disarm, 
for  henceforth  the  Hague  Court  would  hold  sway; 
when  the  socialists  were  becoming  opportunists 
and  the  anarchists  had  laid  aside  their  bombs ; 
when  such  scientists  as  Metchnikoff  were  saying 
that  self-sacrifice  and  heroism  of  the  fighting  sort 
were  antiquated  virtues  for  which  the  peaceful  and 
sanitary  world  of  the  future  would  have  little  use. 
Chesterton  was  wrong  about  the  nature  of  the 
catastrophe.  He  was  looking  and,  I  fear,  hoping 
for  a  social  revolution,  and  that  has  not  yet  come 
although  it  seems  now  less  improbable  than  it  did 
then. 

But  the  Great  War  has  given  an  irresistible  im- 
pulse to  the  movement  toward  particularism  as 
against  cosmopolitanism.  Whether  we  like  it  or 

1  Republished,  1913,  in  "  Poems  "  (John  Lane  Co.,  New  York). 

[160] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

not,  we  must  admit  that  the  tide  has  turned  in  the 
other  direction  and  that  it  will  be  many  years, 
perhaps  more  than  one  generation,  before  there  will 
be  the  freedom  of  trade,  intercourse,  and  migration 
that  prevailed  at  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century.  Even  England  has  abandoned  free  trade, 
and  every  country  will  hereafter  strive  to  secure 
economic  independence  by  developing  its  own  re- 
sources. Even  before  the  war  there  was  a  tendency 
toward  the  sort  of  local  differentiation  of  which 
Chesterton  gave  a  fantastic  forecast  in  "The  Na- 
poleon of  Netting  Hill."  This  tendency  manifested 
itself  in  a  variety  of  ways ;  in  the  cultivation  of 
local  industries,  the  revival  of  folk  dances  and  his- 
toric costumes,  in  pageantry  and  community  cele- 
brations, in  the  interest  in  town  history  and  in  the 
struggle  to  reestablish  disappearing  languages,  like 
Gaelic,  Czech,  and  Ruthenian. 

From  Chesterton's  latest  book  devoted  to  the 
crimes  of  Germany,  and  characteristically  entitled 
"The  Crimes  of  England",1  we  can  see  that  it  is 
the  primitive  little  peasant  kingdom  of  Montenegro 
that  he  most  admires  and  the  machine-like  effi- 
ciency of  the  German  empire  that  he  most  abhors. 
Montenegro,  since  he  wrote  this  volume,  has  been 

1  Published,  1916,  by  John  Lane  Co.,  New  York. 

[161! 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

overwhelmed  by  the  tide  of  war,  but  probably 
Chesterton  has  faith  to  believe  that  it  will  reappear 
like  Ararat  when  the  waters  subside.  This  faith 
he  expressed  in  the  poem,  "The  March  of  the  Black 
Mountain",  written  during  the  Balkan  war  which 
Montenegro  initiated  by  a  single-handed  attack 
upon  the  Turk : 

But  men  shall  remember  the  Mountain, 

Though  it  fall  down  like  a  tree, 
They  shall  see  the  sign  of  the  Mountain 

Faith  cast  into  the  sea  ; 
Though  the  crooked  swords  overcome  it 

And  the  Crooked  Moon  ride  free, 
When  the  Mountain  comes  to  Mahomet 

It  has  more  life  than  he. 

Chesterton  has  a  better  right  to  appear  now  as 
the  champion  of  small  nationalities  than  some  other 
English  authors  we  could  name,  for  he  first  entered 
the  lists  of  public  life  to  break  a  lance  in  defense  of 
the  Boers  at  a  time  when  it  was  most  unpopular  if 
not  dangerous  to  say  a  word  in  their  favor.  He 
refers  to  these  youthful  days  in  his  "Song  of  De- 
feat", published  some  ten  years  afterward.  I  quote 
part  of  one  stanza  : 

I  dream  of  the  days  when  work  was  scrappy, 
And  rare  in  our  pockets  the  mark  of  the  mint : 

[162] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

When  we  were  angry  and  poor  and  happy, 

And  proud  of  seeing  our  names  in  print. 
For  so  they  conquered  and  so  we  scattered, 

When  the  Devil  rode  and  his  dogs  smelt  gold, 
And  the  peace  of  a  harmless  folk  was  shattered, 

When  I  was  twenty  and  odd  years  old. 
When  mongrel  men  that  the  market  classes, 

Had  slimy  hands  on  England's  rod 
And  sword  in  hand  upon  Afric's  passes 

Her  last  Republic  cried  to  God  ! 1 

One  of  his  youthful  dreams  was  to  see  a  reunion 
of  the  United  States  and  England  which  he  imagined 
would  come  about  in  some  great  foreign  war.  But 
by  1905,  when  he  included  the  poem  on  "The 
Anglo-Saxon  Alliance"  in  a  volume,2  he  had  lost 
faith  in  such  ethnic  generalities  as  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race,  so  he  explains  in  his  preface : 

I  have  come  to  see  that  our  hopes  of  brotherhood 
with  America  are  the  same  in  kind  as  our  hopes  of 
brotherhood  with  any  other  of  the  great  independent 
nations  of  Christendom.  And  a  very  small  study 
of  history  was  sufficient  to  show  me  that  the  Ameri- 
can nation,  which  -is  a  hundred  years  old,  is  at  least 
fifty  years  older  than  the  Anglo-Saxon  race. 

But  the  poem,  both  because  he  wrote  it  and  be- 
cause he  repudiated  it,  has  an  especial  interest  now 
when  American  sympathy  with  England  is  stronger 

1  From  "  Poems  "  (John  Lane). 

*  "The  Wild  Knight"  (Dutton  &  Co.,  New  York). 

[I63] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

than  ever  before,  the  traditional  hostility  has  been 
largely  swept  away,  and  there  is  talk  of  joining  Eng- 
land in  this  bloodiest  of  all  wars. 

This  is  the  weird  of  a  world-old  folk, 

That  not  till  the  last  link  breaks 
Not  till  the  night  is  blackest, 

The  blood  of  Hengist  wakes. 
When  the  sun  is  black  in  heaven, 

The  moon  as  blood  above, 
And  the  earth  is  full  of  hatred, 

This  people  tells  its  love. 

In  change,  eclipse  and  peril, 

Under  the  whole  world's  scorn, 
By  blood  and  death  and  darkness 

The  Saxon  peace  is  sworn ; 
That  all  our  fruit  be  gathered, 

And  all  our  race  take  hands, 
And  the  sea  be  a  Saxon  river 

That  runs  through  Saxon  lands. 

******* 

Deep  grows  the  hate  of  kindred. 

Its  roots  take  hold  on  hell ; 
No  peace  or  praise  can  heal  it, 

But  a  stranger  heals  it  well. 
Seas  shall  be  red  as  sunsets, 

And  kings'  bones  float  as  foam, 
And  heaven  be  dark  with  vultures, 

The  night  our  son  comes  home. 

In   some   respects   we   should   expect   Chesterton 
to  go  better  in  verse  than  in  prose.     He  thinks  in 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

metaphors  and  pictures,  vivid,  fantastic,  and  color- 
ful. The  peculiarities  of  his  prose  style  that  grate 
upon  the  taste  of  some  readers,  such  as  the  repeti- 
tion of  the  same  words,  the  alliteration,  the  un- 
qualified assertion  of  half  truths,  the  queer  rhythms, 
the  verbal  tricks,  and  the  superabundance  of  tropes, 
are  by  tradition  permissible  in  poetry  and  so  arouse 
no  resentment. 

On  the  other  hand,  poetry  is  a  painstaking  art, 
and  Chesterton  does  not  like  to  take  pains.  He  is 
too  indolent  or  too  indifferent  to  hunt  for  the  best 
possible  word  or  rime.  Consequently  we  find 
in  his  verse  many  a  perfect  line,  rarely  a  perfect 
stanza,  and  never  a  perfect  poem.  But  scattered 
all  through  his  verse,  even  in  the  most  nonsensical, 
we  happen  upon  curious  cadences  that  linger  in  the 
memory  like  the  chant  of  some  strange  ritual.  His 
ballads  abound  in  unconventional  rhythms  that 
haunt  one  like  those  of  Lanier's  "Ballad  of  the  Trees 
and  the  Master." 

Although  Chesterton  often  seems  to  disregard 
the  canons  of  versification  from  carelessness  or 
caprice,  yet  at  other  times  he  takes  delight  in  sub- 
jecting himself  to  the  most  rigid  of  models,  as,  for 
instance,  the  old  French  ballade,  which,  he  says,  is 
"the  easiest  because  it  is  the  most  restricted."  He 

[165] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

shows  us  how  he  constructs  one  in  "The  Ballade  of 
a  Strange  Town."  l  The  strange  town  into  which 
he  was  shunted  by  the  accident  of  taking  the  wrong 
tramcar  one  rainy  day  while  "fooling  about  Flan- 
ders" was  Lierre,  an  unknown  and  uninteresting 
way  station  then,  but  now  one  of  the  famous  places 
of  world  history,  for  it  stood  for  days  the  shock  of 
the  German  attack  on  Antwerp.  While  waiting 
for  the  next  car  to  take  him  away  Chesterton 
scribbled  on  the  back  of  an  envelope  with  an  aniline 
pencil  a  poem  which  begins  in  nonsense  but  ends 
with  as  good  an  expression  of  his  creed  as  he  has 
given  anywhere : 

Happy  is  he  and  more  than  wise 

Who  sees  with  wondering  eyes  and  clean 
This  world  through  all  the  gray  disguise 

Of  sleep  and  custom  in  between. 
Yes  :  we  may  pass  the  heavenly  screen, 

But  shall  we  know  when  we  are  there  ? 
Who  know  not  what  these  dead  stones  mean, 

The  lovely  city  of  Lierre. 

Chesterton  is  so  fond  of  the  ballade  that  I  must 
quote  one  specimen  complete.2  For  the  benefit  of 
those  who  have  taken  no  interest  in  versification 
I  may  call  attention  to  the  technical  difficulties  of 

1 "  In  Tremendous  Trifles  ",  1909  (Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.,  New  York). 
1  From  "  Poems  "  Qohn  Lane). 

[166] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

the  form  of  the  ballade  that  he  has  chosen.  It  con- 
sists of  three  octaves  and  a  quatrain  all  ending  in 
the  same  refrain  and  using  only  two  rimes.  The 
first  rime  is  used  in  the  first  and  third  lines  of 
the  first  quatrain  and  in  the  second  and  fourth  of  the 
second  quatrain.  The  second  rime  is  used  in  the 
second  and  fourth  lines  of  the  first  quatrain  and 
in  the  first  and  third  of  the  second  quatrain.  The 
closing  quatrain  or  Venvoi  is  in  the  ballade  ad- 
dressed to  a  prince  or  other  royal  personage.  Since 
Chesterton  hates  princes  his  apostrophe  to  the  prince 
in  this  ballade  is  not  in  the  usual  sycophantic  style. 

A  BALLADE  OF  SUICIDE 

The  gallows  in  my  garden,  people  say, 

Is  new  and  neat  and  adequately  tall. 
I  tie  the  noose  on  in  a  knowing  way 

As  one  that  knots  his  necktie  for  a  ball ; 
But  just  as  all  the  neighbors  —  on  the  wall  — 

Are  drawing  a  long  breath  to  shout  "Hurray!" 
The  strangest  whim  has  seized  me  .  .  .     After  all 

I  think  I  will  not  hang  myself  to-day. 

To-morrow  is  the  time  I  get  my  pay  — 

My  uncle's  sword  is  hanging  in  the  hall  — 
I  see  a  little  cloud  all  pink  and  grey  — 

Perhaps  the  rector's  mother  will  not  call  — 
I  fancy  that  I  heard  from  Mr.  Gall 

That  mushrooms  could  be  cooked  another  way  — 
I  never  read  the  works  of  Juvenal  — 

I  think  I  will  not  hang  myself  to-day. 

[167] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

The  world  will  have  another  washing  day ; 

The  decadents  decay;  the  pedants  pall; 
And  H.  G.  Wells  has  found  that  children  play, 

And  Bernard  Shaw  discovered  that  they  squall ; 
Rationalists  are  growing  rational  — 

And  through  thick  woods  one  finds  a  stream  astray, 
So  secret  that  the  very  sky  seems  small  — 

I  think  I  will  not  hang  myself  to-day. 

L' ENVOI 

Prince,  I  can  hear  the  trumpet  of  Germinal, 
The  tumbrils  toiling  up  the  terrible  way ; 

Even  to-day  your  royal  head  may  fall  — 
I  think  I  will  not  hang  myself  to-day. 

Those  who  assisted  —  with  more  or  less  enthu- 
siasm —  in  the  Shakespeare  Tercentenary  celebration 
will  appreciate  Chesterton's  verses  about  a  similar 
commemoration  decreed  by  the  calendar. 

THE  SHAKESPEARE  MEMORIAL 

Lord  Lilac  thought  it  rather  rotten 
That  Shakespeare  should  be  quite  forgotten, 
And  therefore  got  on  a  Committee 
With  several  chaps  out  of  the  city, 
And  Shorter  and  Sir  Herbert  Tree, 
Lord  Rothschild  and  Lord  Rosebery, 
And  F.  C.  G.  and  Comyns  Carr, 
Two  dukes  and  a  dramatic  star, 
Also  a  clergyman  now  dead ; 
And  while  the  vain  world  careless  sped 
Unheeding  the  heroic  name  — 

[168] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

The  souls  most  fed  with  Shakespeare's  flame 
Still  sat  unconquered  in  a  ring, 
Remembering  him  like  anything. 

Lord  Lilac  did  not  long  remain, 
Lord  Lilac  did  not  come  again, 
He  softly  lit  a  cigarette 
And  sought  some  other  social  set 
Where,  in  some  other  knots  or  rings, 
People  were  doing  cultured  things, 

—  Miss  Zwilt's  Humane  Vivarium 

—  The  little  men  who  paint  on  gum 

—  The  exquisite  Gorilla  Girl.  .  .  . 
He  sometimes  in  the  giddy  whirl 
(Not  being  really  bad  at  heart), 
Remembered  Shakespeare  with  a  start  — 
But  not  with  that  grand  constancy 

Of  Clement  Shorter,  Herbert  Tree, 
Lord  Rosebery,  and  Comyns  Carr 
And  all  the  other  names  there  are ; 
Who  stuck  like  limpets  to  the  spot, 
Lest  they  forgot,  lest  they  forgot. 

Lord  Lilac  was  of  slighter  stuff ; 
Lord  Lilac  had  had  quite  enough.1 

Chesterton's  poetic  versatility  range  may  be  in- 
ferred from  the  fact  that  he  has  written  a  drinking 
song  that  is  used  as  a  whisky  advertisement  and  a 
devotional  song  that  has  been  incorporated  into  the 
hymn  book.  The  former  may  be  found  in  "The 
Flying  Inn",  the  latter  in  the  "English  Hymnal", 

»  From  "  Poems  "  (John  Lane). 
[I69] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

also  in  "Poems."  The  hymn  is  as  follows,  omitting, 
as  the  preachers  always  say,1  the  third  stanza. 
Sing  it  to  the  tune  of  "Webb." 

O  God  of  earth  and  altar, 
Bow  down  and  hear  our  cry, 

Our  earthly  rulers  falter, 
Our  people  drift  and  die. 

The  walls  of  gold  entomb  us, 

The  swords  of  scorn  divide, 
Take  not  thy  thunder  from  us 

But  take  away  our  pride. 

From  all  that  terror  teaches, 
From  lies  of  tongue  and  pen, 

From  all  the  easy  speeches 
That  comfort  cruel  men, 

From  sale  and  profanation 

Of  honor  and  the  sword, 
From  sleep  and  from  damnation 

Deliver  us,  good  Lord  ! 

But  I  know  of  some  people  —  and  more  sensible 
people  than  you  would  suppose  —  who  say  that  they 
like  "Quoodle"  the  best  of  Chesterton's  poetry. 
Since  there  is  no  accounting  for  taste  and  some  of 
my  readers  may  have  taste,  I  must  also  quote  this  : 

1  It  has  always  been  a  puzzle  to  me  why  congregations  have  to  be 
warned  against  singing  the  third  stanza  of  any  hymn.  I  never  could 
see  that  it  was  any  worse  than  the  rest,  but  I  assume  the  clergy  know 
best  about  it. 

[170] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 


SONG  OF  THE  DOG  NAMED  QUOODLE 

They  haven't  got  no  noses, 

The  fallen  sons  of  Eve. 
Even  the  smell  of  roses 
Is  not  what  they  supposes, 
But  more  than  mind  discloses, 

And  more  than  men  believe. 

They  haven't  got  no  noses, 

They  cannot  even  tell 
When  door  and  darkness  closes 
The  park  old  Gluck  encloses, 
Where  even  the  Law  of  Moses 

Will  let  you  steal  a  smell. 

The  brilliant  smell  of  water, 

The  brave  smell  of  a  stone, 
The  smell  of  dew  and  thunder, 
And  old  bones  buried  under 
Are  things  in  which  they  blunder 
And  err,  if  left  alone. 

The  wind  from  winter  forests, 

The  scent  of  scentless  flowers, 
The  breath  of  bride's  adorning 
The  smell  of  snare  and  warning, 
The  smell  of  Sunday  morning, 
God  gave  to  us  for  ours. 


And  Quoodle  here  discloses 

All  things  that  Quoodle  can ; 
They  haven't  got  no  noses, 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

They  haven't  got  no  noses, 
And  goodness  only  knowses 
The  Noselessness  of  Man.1 

According  to  Mendelism  new  species  are  most 
apt  to  come  from  the  crossing  of  diverse  forms. 
We  should  then  naturally  expect  Chesterton's  verse 
to  be  original,  since  it  is  the  result  of  a  cross  between 
Whitman  and  Swinburne.  At  any  rate  these  were 
the  poets  who  most  influenced  Chesterton  when  in 
his  teens  he  began  to  write  poetry.  In  philosophy 
of  life  Whitman  and  Swinburne  were  not  so  far 
apart,  since  they  were  both  pagans  and  democrats, 
but  in  form  they  are  antipodes.  Whitman  was  the 
father  or  the  grandfather  of  the  vers-librists.  He 
cultivated  the  unconventional  and  introduced  the 
most  unpoetic  and  uncouth  words.  Swinburne,  on 
the  other  hand,  sought  his  themes  in  the  classics 
and  sacrificed  anything  to  the  music  of  his  lines. 

The  early  poetry  of  Chesterton  shows  traces  of 
both  influences.  One  very  interesting  instance  of 
this  is  found  in  a  poem  that  he  wrote  at  school, 
when  he  was  about  sixteen.  It  is  an  Ave  Maria 
in  the  Swinburnian  meter.  That  is,  he  has  bor- 
rowed the  weapon  of  the  atheist  and  used  it  in  de- 

1  I  quote  from  The  New  Witness.  The  version  in  "The  Flying 
Inn  "  is  a  trifle  different. 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

fense  of  Catholicism  —  a   trick   that  he  has   been 
playing  ever  since.     The  poem  begins  : 

Hail  Mary  !    Thou  blest  among  women ;  generations 

shall  rise  up  to  greet, 
After  ages  of  wrangle  and  dogma,  I  come  with  a 

prayer  to  thy  feet. 
Where  Gabriel's  red  plumes  are  a  wind  in  the  lanes 

of  thy  lilies  at  eve 
We   pray,  who   have   done  with   the   churches ;  we 

worship,  who  may  not  believe. 

From  his  twelfth  to  his  seventeenth  year  he  went 
to  St.  Paul's  school,  where,  as  he  says,  "I  did  no 
work  but  wrote  a  lot  of  bad  poetry  which  fortunately 
perished  with  the  almost  equally  bad  exercises.  I 
got  a  prize  for  one  of  these  poems  —  Golly,  what  a 
bad  poem  it  was  !" 

The  prize  was  known  as  the  Milton  Prize  and  the 
subject  assigned  to  the  pupils  competing  for  it  was 
St.  Francis  Xavier.  A  soliloquy  of  Danton  on  the 
scaffold,  written  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  shows  how 
early  began  his  fascination  for  the  French  Revo- 
lution. His  fondness  for  discussion  was  cultivated 
at  the  St.  Paul's  school  in  the  Junior  Debating 
Club,  of  which  he  was  chairman,  and  the  monthly 
periodical  of  the  society,  The  Debater,  contains  many 
essays  and  poems  signed  "G.  K.  C."  His  first 
contribution  to  the  outside  press  was  a  Socialist 

[173] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

poem  appearing  in  The  Clarion,  but  a  few  years 
later  he  was  busy  trying  to  puncture  the  balloon 
of  Socialism  with  his  sharp-pointed  pen. 

After  leaving  St.  Paul's  he  studied  art  at  the 
Slade  School  in  London  and  has  illustrated  half  a 
dozen  books  with  cartoons,  for  he  draws  as  readily 
as  he  writes.  His  first  book  was  a  volume  of  jingles 
and  sketches  entitled  "Gray-Beards  at  Play;  Lit- 
erature and  Art  for  Old  Gentlemen." 

His  propensity  for  dropping  into  nonsense  rhymes 
and  sketches  may  be  ascribed  to  heredity,  for  his 
father,  Edward  Chesterton,  though  a  respectable 
real  estate  agent  by  profession,  was  responsible  for 
a  slim  volume  of  child  verse  and  drawings,  "The 
Wonderful  Story  of  Dunder  van  Haeden  and  His 
Seven  Little  Daughters." 

G.  K.  Chesterton  was  born  in  Kensington,  Lon- 
don, May  29,  1874.  There  is  nothing  in  his  heredity 
or  early  training  to  account  for  his  conservative  and 
High  Church  tendencies,  for  his  father  was  a  liberal 
in  politics  and  religion  and  attended  Bedford  Chapel 
where  the  Reverend  Stopford  Brooke  was  preaching 
what  was  then  called  "the  new  theology."  Al- 
though educated  as  an  artist,  G.  K.  Chesterton  soon 
passed  from  sketching  through  art  criticism  to 
journalism.  He  began  by  writing  pro-Boer  articles 

[174] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

for  The  Speaker,  a  Liberal  weekly.  The  originality 
of  his  thought  and  the  vigor  of  his  style  attracted 
public  attention,  and  The  Daily  News  took  him  over 
to  write  a  weekly  article  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he 
differed  in  opinion  from  the  editors  and  readers  on 
certain  points.  As  his  anonymous  biographer  says : 

"Thousands  of  peaceful  semi-Tolstoyan  non- 
conformists have  for  years  been  compelled  to  listen 
every  Saturday  morning  to  a  fiery  apostle  preaching 
consistently  the  praise  of  three  things  which  seem 
to  them  most  obviously  the  sign-manuals  of  Hell 
—  War,  Drink,  and  Catholicism." 

But  more  recently  his  antagonism  to  "cocoa"  — 
extended  symbolically  to  the  politics  as  well  as  to 
the  beverage  of  Cadbury  —  became  so  great  as  to 
break  this  incongruous  alliance  and  he  has  found 
in  his  brother's  weekly  The  New  Witness  a  more 
congenial  although  a  smaller  audience.  He  has  also 
contributed  for  many  years  a  weekly  page  to  The 
Illustrated  London  News,  which  is  under  entirely 
different  management  from  The  Daily  News.  Be- 
sides these  and  frequent  contributions  to  other 
periodicals  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  he  manages 
to  turn  out  a  volume  or  two  of  stories  every  year  as 
well  as  poetry  and  criticism,  an  amazing  output 
considering  that  there  is  hardly  a  dull  page  in  it. 

1175] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

To  keep  it  up  so  long  and  steadily  must  be  a  strain 
upon  one  of  his  easy-going  temperament.  Fleet 
Street  men  tell  me  that  it  is  hard  to  get  his  copy 
on  time.  As  press  day  draws  near  runners  are  sent 
around  to  his  clubs  and  other  London  haunts  to  tell 
him  that  the  editor  must  have  his  article  immedi- 
ately. Once  caught  Chesterton  surrenders  good- 
naturedly  and  taking  any  paper  handy  will  dash 
off  his  essay,  carrying  on  a  lively  conversation  at 
the  same  time. 

Producing  under  such  pressure  or  at  least  under 
the  compulsion  of  filling  a  certain  number  of  columns 
every  week  with  witty  comment  on  current  events 
inevitably  tends  to  careless  writing.  Chesterton's 
work  is  all  equally  readable,  but  not  all  equally 
worth  reading.  He  is  an  inspired  writer,  but  he 
goes  on  writing  quite  as  brilliantly  after  the  in- 
spiration has  given  out,  just  as  a  man  writing  in 
the  dark  goes  on  after  his  fountain  pen  has  run  dry 
and  is  only  making  meaningless  scratches  on  the 
paper.  His  display  of  gems  of  thought  is  hardly 
to  be  matched  by  any  other  show  window,  but 
there  are  so  many  paste  diamonds  among  them  of 
equal  brilliancy  that  the  half  of  the  world  which 
does  not  like  Chesterton  takes  it  for  granted  that 
they  are  all  paste.  They  may  even  quote  Chester- 

[176] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

ton  in  support  of  their  view  for  he  says:  "All  is 
gold  that  glitters  for  the  glitter  is  the  gold." 

When  ex-President  Roosevelt,  on  his  return  from 
Africa,  was  given  a  dinner  by  the  journalists  of 
London,  he  was  asked  by  the  committee  on  arrange- 
ments whom  he  would  like  to  have  placed  by  his 
side  to  talk  with  during  the  meal,  and  he  promptly 
chose  Chesterton.  I  was  of  much  the  same  mind 
when  I  went  to  England,  but  not  being  in  a  position 
to  summon  him  to  my  side  I  sought  him  out  in  his 
home,  Overroads.  This  is  a  little  way  out  of  Lon- 
don, near  the  town  of  Beaconsfield  from  which 
Disraeli  took  his  title,  —  uncomfortable  quarters, 
I  should  say,  for  Chesterton,  considering  his  antip- 
athy for  Disraeli  and  his  race. 

Arriving  at  Beaconsfield  by  the  tea-time  train 
I  walked  up  the  hill  to  where  I  saw  a  big  man  sitting 
on  the  little  porch  of  a  little  house.  He  impressed 
me  as  Sunday  impressed  Symes.  I  do  not  mean 
Billy  Sunday,  but  quite  a  different  personage,  the 
Sunday  of  "The  Man  Who  Was  Thursday."  Great 
men  are  apt  to  shrink  when  you  get  too  close  to 
them.  Mr.  Chesterton  did  not.  He  was  too  big 
to  fit  his  environment.  The  house  was  what  we 
should  call  a  bungalow;  I  don't  know  what  they 
call  it  in  England.  It  was  on  a  little  triangular  lot 

[177] 


SIX  MAJOR   PROPHETS 

set  with  trees  half  his  height  and  a  rustic  arbor 
patiently  awaiting  vines.  Afterward  I  saw  in  the 
paper  that  Mr.  Chesterton  broke  a  leg  on  that 
arbor.  I  suppose  he  must  have  tripped  over  it 
like  a  croquet  wicket. 

Mr.  Chesterton  has  a  big  head  covered  with  curly 
locks,  two  of  them  gray.  He  is  gifted  with  a  Taft- 
like  smile,  and  talks  in  a  deep-toned,  wheezy  voice, 
punctuating  his  remarks  with  an  engaging  chuckle. 
It  is  no  trouble  to  interview  him.  I  never  met  a 
man  who  talked  more  easily  or  more  interestingly. 
"There  are  no  uninteresting  subjects,"  he  says, 
"there  are  only  uninterested  persons."  Start  any 
idea  you  please  as  unexpectedly  as  a  rabbit  from  its 
lair,  and  he  will  after  it  in  a  second  and  follow  all 
its  turns  and  windings  until  he  runs  it  down.  His 
mind  is  as  agile  as  a  movie  actor.  Epigrams, 
paradoxes,  puns,  anecdotes,  characterizations,  meta- 
phors, fell  from  his  lips  in  such  profusion  that  I, 
who  knew  the  market  value  of  such  verbal  gems, 
felt  as  nervous  as  a  jeweler  who  sees  a  lady  break 
her  necklace.  I  wanted  him  to  stop  while  I  got 
down  on  my  knees  and  picked  them  up.  But  he 
did  not  mind  wasting  clever  things  on  me,  for  there 
were  so  many  more  where  those  came  from.  Be- 
sides they  were  not  so  completely  lost  as  I  feared. 

[178] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

I  recognized  some  of  them  a  few  weeks  later  in  his 
causerif  page  of  The  Illustrated  London  News. 

But  when  you  visit  Mr.  Chesterton  don't  make 
the  mistake  that  I  did  and  attempt  to  please  him 
by  telling  him  how  much  he  reminds  you  of  Doctor 
Johnson.  He  admitted  to  me  that  he  had  "paged 
a  bit"  in  that  role,  but  I  judge  from  what  he  says 
in  "The  Mystery  of  a  Pageant"  1  he  does  not  re- 
gard his  selection  for  the  part  as  altogether  com- 
plimentary to  his  personal  appearance. 

Perhaps  he  would  not  like  it  any  better  to  be  told 
that  the  resemblance  was  more  psychical  than 
physical.  Chesterton  is  doubtless  the  most  dog- 
matic man  England  has  seen  since  Doctor  Johnson 
died.  He  has  equally  violent  prejudices,  and  he 
expresses  them  with  equal  wit.  Unfortunately  he 
has  no  Boswell.  Chesterton  has  written  a  book 
about  Shaw,  but  so  far  Shaw  has  shown  no  dis- 
position to  return  the  compliment. 

Shaw,  in  speaking  of  Coburn's  portrait  of  Chester- 
ton says:  "He  is  our  Quinbus  Flestrin,  the  young 
Man  Mountain,  a  large  abounding  gigantically 
cherubic  person." 

It  is  Shaw's  theory  that  G.  K.  Chesterton  and 
Hilaire  Belloc  are  not  two  persons,  but  one  mytho- 

1  "Tremendous  Trifles",  p.  317. 
[179] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

logical    monster   to   be    known    as    "The    Chester- 
belloc." 

Chesterton's  ideals  are  large  and  generous  and 
very  solid :  A  divinely  ordered  church,  a  really 
democratic  state,  and  a  life  of  that  hopeful  and 
humble  wonder  that  men  call  romance.  But  his 
usefulness  as  a  moral  philosopher  is  impaired  by 
the  possession  of  a  number  of  blind  spots  or  in- 
veterate prejudices  that  prevent  him  from  seeing 
clearly.  He  is  like  the  tenor  who  had  aelurophobia 
and  was  upset  whenever  a  cat  came  into  the 
room.  So  whenever  one  of  these  phobias  comes 
into  his  mind  Chesterton  loses  his  poise  and  sings 
false.  Some  of  the  things  for  which  he  has  a 
particular  abhorrence  are :  cocoa,  colonies,  divorce, 
equal  suffrage,  Esperanto,  eugenics,  large  scale  pro- 
duction, latitudinarianism,  Lloyd  George,  official 
sanitation,  organized  charity,  peace  movement, 
pragmatism,  prohibition,  public  schools,  simplified 
spelling,  vaccination,  vivisection,  and  workingmen's 
insurance,  all  of  which  some  of  the  rest  of  us  look 
upon  with  favor.  His  inability  to  see  any  good  in 
these  and  a  score  of  other  modern  movements  brings 
him  into  curious  inconsistencies.  For  instance,  he  is 
an  enthusiast  for  universal  manhood  suffrage.  But 
any  mention  of  woman  suffrage  is  like  waving  a 

[180] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

red  coat  before  an  Irish  bull.  His  statement  that 
there  are  three  things  which  women  can  never 
understand,  liberty,  equality,  and  fraternity,  is  as 
brutal  and  untrue  as  anything  Nietzsche  or  Strind- 
berg  has  said. 

In  his  essay  on  William  James  he  says  "pragma- 
tism is  bosh",  yet  his  whole  system  of  apologetics 
is  based  upon  the  pragmatic  argument;  religion 
is  true  because  it  works.  "If  Christianity  makes 
a  man  happy  while  his  legs  are  being  eaten  off  by  a 
lion,  might  it  not  make  me  happy  while  my  legs  are 
still  attached  to  me  and  walking  down  the  street  ?" 
In  order  to  make  due  allowance  for  Chesterton's  class 
and  race  prejudices  while  reading  his  works,  it  is  con- 
venient to  keep  a  list  like  this  as  a  bookmark : 

TABLE  OF  CHESTERTON'S  AFFECTIONS  AND 
AVERSIONS 

CLASSES 

He  likes  most:  I.   Children 

2.  Peasants 

3.  Domestic  women 

4.  Artisans  and  laborers 

5.  Priests  and  soldiers 

6.  Poets  and  adventurers 

7.  Shopkeepers 
(hereabouts  is  a   great  gulf 

fixed) 

[181] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 


He  dislikes  most 


He  likes  most : 


He  dislikes  most 


8.  Business     and     professional 

men 

9.  Criminals     (including    poli- 

ticians) 

10.  The    conceited    professional 

classes  (the  intellectuals) 

11.  Landlords 

12.  Millionaires 

13.  Multimillionaires 

RACES 

1.  Irish 

2.  French 

3.  English 

4.  Russians 

5.  Turks 

6.  Jews 

7.  Germans 

8.  Cosmopolites 


In  his  youth  Chesterton  wrote  a  poem  in  defense 
of  Dreyfus,  "To  A  Certain  Nation",  but  by  the 
time  he  came  to  publish  it  in  his  first  volume,  "The 
Wild  Knight",  he  had  so  changed  his  opinion  that 
he  makes  a  partial  apology  for  it  in  the  preface. 
Since  then  he  has,  in  connection  with  his  brother 
Cecil  and  Mr.  Belloc,  introduced  into  British  jour- 
nalism a  foreign  element  from  which  it  had  formerly 
been  free,  the  political  anti-Semitism  which  has 
been  the  cause  of  so  much  disturbance  in  France, 
Russia,  and  Germany.  Almost  every  number  of 

[182] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

The  New  Witness,  edited  by  Cecil  Chesterton, 
contains  sneers  at  Jewish  financiers  and  politicians, 
and  in  1912  he  went  so  far  that  he  was  fined 
five  hundred  dollars  and  costs  for  defamatory  libel 
of  Godfrey  Isaacs,  director  of  the  Marconi  Com- 
pany. The  prosecution  significantly  was  conducted 
by  Sir  Edward  Carson  and  F.  E.  Smith. 

It  is  greatly  to  be  hoped  that  The  New  Witness 
group  may  get  rid  of  their  race  prejudice  and  cut 
down  on  their  muckraking,  which,  though  often 
necessary,  is  never  nice,  and  bring  forward  the  con- 
structive part  of  their  program,  for  this  is  the  time 
when  there  is  a  chance  to  do  something.  For  in- 
stance, the  British  Party  system  against  which  they 
so  long  clamored  without  effect  has  now  broken 
down  under  stress  of  the  war,  but  there  is  nothing 
in  sight  to  take  its  place.  G.  K.  Chesterton  was 
quite  right  when  he  said  that  "the  party  system  of 
England  is  an  enormous  and  most  efficient  machine 
for  preventing  political  conflicts",1  and  that  what 
party  politics  had  done  was  to  turn  Balfour  from  the 
analysis  of  the  doubtful  to  the  defense  of  the  dubious 
and  Morley  from  writing  on  compromise  to  practic- 
ing it.  And  again,  "I  think  the  cabinet  minister 

1  In  Chesterton's  book  on  Shaw. 
[I83] 


SIX  MAJOR   PROPHETS 

should  be  taken  a  little  less  seriously  and  the  cabinet 
maker  a  little  more."  1 

Chesterton  protests  against  being  regarded  as  a 
mere  obstructionist  and  reactionary  in  such  lan- 
guage as  the  following : 

I  do  not  propose  (like  some  of  my  revolutionary 
friends)  that  we  should  abolish  the  public  schools. 
I  propose  the  much  more  lurid  and  desperate  ex- 
periment that  we  should  make  them  public.  I  do 
not  wish  to  make  Parliament  stop  working,  but 
rather  to  make  it  work ;  not  to  shut  up  the  churches, 
but  rather  to  open  them ;  not  to  put  out  the  lamp 
of  learning  or  destroy  the  hedge  of  property,  but 
only  to  make  some  rude  effort  to  make  universities 
fairly  universal  and  property  decently  proper.2 

Man  has  always  believed  in  a  paradise,  but  he  has 
never  been  certain  whether  to  look  for  it  in  the  past 
or  the  future,  or  both.  We  have  very  detailed 
descriptions  of  Atlantis,  Valhalla,  the  Golden  Age, 
Utopia,  and  the  like,  but  the  tense  of  the  verb  is 
indeterminable.  Chesterton  is  equally  uncertain 
as  to  whether  to  look  forward  or  backward  for  his 
ideal  state.  His  "Christmas  Song  for  Three  Gilds" 
is  headed  "To  be  sung  a  long  time  ago  —  or  hence." 
He  has  not  yet  favored  us  with  a  blueprint  of  his 
Utopia,  so  we  are  left  to  surmise  what  he  likes  from 

1  "Miscellany  of  Men." 

1  "What's  Wrong  with  the  World." 

[I84] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

the  very  plain  indications  he  has  given  us  of  what  he 
does  not  like.  Chesterton  seems  to  obey  a  negative 
magnetism  and  orients  himself  by  his  antipathies. 

We  may  infer  that  his  ideal  would  be  a  self-gov- 
erning community  of  equally  well-to-do,  leisurely, 
patriotic,  domestic,  religious,  jolly,  beer-drinking, 
pork-eating,  art-loving,  freehold  farmers  and  gild 
craftsmen,  clustered  about  the  village  inn  and 
church.  They  would  all  be  of  one  race  and  creed, 
healthy  without  doctors,  wealthy  without  financiers, 
governed  without  politicians.  He  believes  with 
Belloc  that  the  nearest  historical  approach  to  this 
ideal  was  Western  Europe  about  1200-1500.  He 
probably  would  agree  with  Doctor  James  J.  Walsh 
in  calling  the  thirteenth  "the  greatest  of  all 
centuries."  Among  contemporary  communities  I 
should  say  that  the  mujiks  of  the  Russian  mir  come 
the  nearest  to  complying  with  his  specifications, 
although  he  has  not,  to  my  knowledge,  shown  any 
disposition  to  leave  London  and  take  to  the  steppes 
in  order  to  live  the  simple  life  in  these  communities 
of  pure  democracy.  But  perhaps  this  is  because 
women  vote  in  the  mir.  Of  the  made-to-order 
Utopias  I  presume  that  of  William  Morris's  "News 
from  Nowhere"  would  suit  him  better  than  the 
Socialists  for  whom  it  was  written. 

[185] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

To  sum  up  Chesterton  in  a  sentence,  I  must 
borrow  the  words  of  the  Forum  article  of  O.  W. 
Firkins : 

A  man  who  preaches  an  impassioned  and  ro- 
mantic Christianity,  and  who  adds  to  that  the 
Jeffersonian  doctrine  of  democracy,  the  Words- 
worthian  and  Tolstoyan  doctrine  of  the  majesty 
of  the  untutored  man,  the  Carlylean  doctrine  of 
wonder,  the  Emersonian  doctrine  of  the  spirituality 
latent  in  all  objects,  the  Dickensian  faith  in  the 
worth  and  wisdom  of  the  feeble-minded,  the  Brown- 
ingesque  standard  of  optimism,  affects  us  as  a  man 
with  whom,  whatever  his  vagaries  and  harlequinries, 
it  would  be  wholesome  and  inspiriting  to  live. 


How  TO  READ  CHESTERTON 

Read  whatever  is  handiest,  for  there  is  no  order 
and  sequence  is  not  important.  Chesterton  ex- 
presses much  the  same  philosophy  of  life  in  essays, 
stories,  and  poems  and  there  has  been  little  change 
in  his  opinions  or  style  in  the  sixteen  years  he  has 
been  writing. 

Nowhere  has  he  given  a  complete  and  orderly 
presentation  of  his  views.  He  is  a  born  journalist 
and  prefers  to  fire  at  a  moving  target.  About  once 
a  year  he  gathers  up  a  sheaf  of  his  contributions  to 
the  press  and  puts  them  out  under  as  general  and 
indefinite  a  title  as  he  can  think  up,  but  he  never 
can  think  up  a  title  broad  enough  to  cover  the 
variety  of  topics  he  treats.  The  heading  to  a 

l-M] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

chapter  gives  no  clue  to  the  theme  or  its  importance. 
One  is  apt  to  find  his  deepest  philosophy  tucked 
away  in  some  corner  of  a  discourse  on  cheese  or 
mumming  or  penny  dreadfuls.  He  is  like  a  sub- 
marine ;  when  he  goes  under  you  never  can  tell 
where  he  will  come  out.  Consequently,  as  I  say, 
it  does  not  matter  much  which  volume  you  pick 
up ;  they  are  equally  brilliant  and  inconsequential. 

His  views  on  religion  and  society  are  expounded 
most  thoroughly  in  "Orthodoxy"  (1908),  "Heretics" 
(1905),  both  published  by  John  Lane  Company, 
and  "What's  Wrong  With  the  World"  (1910,  pub- 
lished by  Dodd,  Mead  &  Company).  Somewhat 
briefer,  more  varied,  and  trivial  in  topic  are  "All 
Things  Considered"  (1908,  Lane),  "Tremendous 
Trifles"  (1909,  Dodd),  "Alarms  and  Discursions" 
(1910,  Dodd),  "A  Miscellany  of  Men"  (1912,  Dodd). 

Since  the  war  began  he  has  published  "The  Bar- 
barism of  Berlin"  (1914),  "The  Appetite  of  Tyranny" 
including  "Letters  to  an  Old  Garibaldian"  (1915, 
Dodd),  and  "The  Crimes  of  England"  (1916,  Lane). 
To  this  we  should  add  his  first  work,  "The  De- 
fendant" (1901,  Dodd).  In  The  New  Witness  he 
has  been  running  a  weekly  page  under  the  head  of 
"At  the  Sign  of  the  World's  End",  and  when  his 
brother,  Cecil  Chesterton,  enlisted  as  a  private  in 
October,  1916,  he  assumed  the  editorship  of  that 
lively  journal. 

His  youthful  poetry  is  in  "The  Wild  Knight  and 
Other  Poems"  (1900,  Dutton).  "The  Ballad  of 
the  White  Horse"  (1911,  Lane)  contains  his  epic 
of  King  Alfred,  and  "Poems"  (1915,  Lane)  con- 
tains all  the  rest  of  his  poetry  except  what  still 
remains  buried  in  "the  files."  Of  these  I  must 
mention  "The  Wife  of  Flanders",  which  may  be 

[187] 


found  in  the  Literary  Digest,  Current  Opinion,  or 
Living  Age  of  1914. 

Chesterton  has  written  one  play,  "Magic:  A 
Fantastic  Comedy"  (1913,  Putnam),  which  was  a 
success  on  the  London  and  New  York  stage. 

Of  his  allegorical  fantasias  I  have  discussed  at 
some  length  "The  Man  Who  Was  Thursday" 
(1908,  Dodd).  "The  Ball  and  the  Cross"  (1910, 
Lane)  describes  the  conflict  between  a  religious 
fanatic  and  an  equally  intolerant  atheist.  "Man- 
alive"  (1912,  Lane)  deals  with  domesticity,  and 
"The  Flying  Inn"  (1915,  Lane)  is  a  defense  of  the 
public  house.  In  "Napoleon  of  Netting  Hill" 
(1908,  Lane),  his  first  romance,  he  preaches  paro- 
chialism. 

His  detective  or  rather  mystery  stories  are : 
"The  Club  of  Queer  Trades"  (1905,  Harper); 
"The  Innocence  of  Father  Brown"  (1911,  Lane); 
and  "The  Wisdom  of  Father  Brown"  (1914,  Lane). 

His  literary  criticism,  mostly  written  as  prefaces 
to  standard  reprints,  makes  delightful  reading,  al- 
though sometimes  he  uses  his  author  merely  as  a 
point  of  departure.  Of  Dickens  he  has  written 
most  and  best  in  the  prefaces  to  Everyman's  Library 
edition  (collected  in  "  Appreciations  and  Criticism  of 
Dickens  ",  Dutton)  and  "  Charles  Dickens  ;  A  Critical 
Study"  (1906,  Dodd).  His  "Victorian  Age  in  Litera- 
ture" (1913,  Home  University  Library,  Holt)  is 
not  quite  so  interesting  because  he  does  not  have 
room  to  ramble.  His  "George  Bernard  Shaw" 
(1910,  Lane)  is  not  much  of  a  biography,  but  it  is 
valuable  as  bringing  into  close  contrast  these  repre- 
sentatives of  opposing  points  of  view.  His  "Robert 
Browning"  forms  an  admirable  volume  of  the  Eng- 
lish Men  of  Letters  series  (1908,  Macmillan).  Besides 

[188] 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

these  he  has  written  many  biographical  sketches 
and  critiques,  among  which  may  be  mentioned : 
"Five  Types"  (1911,  Holt);  "Varied  Types"  (1902, 
Dodd);  "G.  F.  Watts"  (1902,  Dutton) ;  "William 
Blake"  (1910,  Dutton);  "Samuel  Johnson"  (1903, 
and  1911);  "Carlyle"  (1902  and  1904)  and  "R.  L. 
Stevenson"  (Pott). 

Chesterton  is  eminently  quotable,  and  the  pocket 
volume  of  "Wit  and  Wisdom  of  Chesterton"  (1911, 
Dodd)  will  afford  plenty  of  food  for  thought  for  any 
one. 

There  are  two  biographies  of  Chesterton.  One 
published  anonymously  in  1908  gives  the  best 
account  of  his  early  life ;  the  other  by  Julius  West 
(1916,  Dodd)  gives  the  most  complete  criticism  of 
his  work  up  to  date,  with  a  bibliography. 

His  picturesque  personality  and  peculiar  views 
have  supplied  innumerable  journalists  with  ma- 
terial for  articles.  Specially  noteworthy  for  one 
reason  or  another  are :  the  excellent  piece  of 
criticism  by  O.  W.  Firkins  in  The  Forum  (vol.  48,. 
p.  597).  "The  Defender  of  the  Discarded",  The 
Forum  (vol.  44,  p.  707),  is  harsh  and  unsympathetic. 
"Chesterton  as  an  Artist"  by  Joseph  B.  Gilder 
(Bookman,  vol.  39,  p.  468,  see  also  vol.  34,  p.  117), 
containing  his  sketches,  a  sketch  by  Henry  Murray, 
with  sixteen  portraits  from  childhood  up,  in  the 
London  Bookman,  May,  1910.  Wells,  in  his  "Social 
Forces  in  England  and  America"  (p.  205),  discusses 
Chesterton  and  Belloc.  "A  Visit  to  G.  K.  C. "  by  B. 
Russell  Herts  in  The  Independent,  November  7,  1912, 
contains  some  of  Chesterton's  sketches ;  reprinted 
with  other  interviews  in  Herts's  "Depreciations" 
(1915,  Boni).  Chesterton  wrote  on  "  Shall  the  United 
States  Fight  ?"  in  The  Independent,  January  12,  1916. 

[189] 


CHAPTER  IV 

F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

A  BRITISH  PRAGMATIST 

The  world  knows  nothing  of  its  greatest  men,  be- 
cause by  the  time  it  knows  something  about  them 
they  have  ceased  to  be  the  greatest. 

F.  C.  S.  SCHILLER. 

A  DOZEN  years  ago  I  happened  upon  the  word 
"pragmatism",  as  it  was  printed,  rather  inappro- 
priately,1 upon  the  slip  cover  of  Santayana's  "Life 
of  Reason."  Being  a  queer  looking  word  and  un- 
known to  me,  I  started  to  find  out  what  it  meant 
and  that  led  me  on  a  long  chase.  The  farther  I 
went  the  more  interested  I  became,  for  I  soon  dis- 
covered that  I  had  been  a  pragmatist  all  my  life 
without  knowing  it.  I  was  as  delighted  as  M. 
Jourdain  when  he  was  told  that  he  had  been  uncon- 
sciously talking  prose  all  his  life.  I  felt  as  relieved 

1  Schiller  says  that  "Professor  Santayana,  though  a  pragmatist  in 
cpistemology  is  a  materialist  in  metaphysics." 

[190] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

as  Huxley  when  he  invented  "agnostic"  as  a  tag  for 
himself. 

I  had  come  by  my  pragmatism  honestly  enough, 
for  I  had  got  my  training  as  a  journalist  through 
the  study  of  chemistry,  and  in  science  the  prag- 
matic mode  of  thinking  is  universal  and  unques- 
tioned. So  when  I  went  to  writing  about  other 
things,  —  politics,  law,  ethics,  history,  religion, 
and  the  like,  —  I  naturally  used  my  brains  in  the 
same  way  as  in  science,  that  is,  I  persisted  in  the 
valuation  of  all  acts  by  their  consequences  instead 
of  their  causes  and  in  the  validation  of  all  truths 
by  practicality  instead  of  precedent.  But  when  I 
found  how  this  way  of  thinking  shocked,  annoyed, 
or  amused  people  I  began  to  fear  that  I  should 
have  to  drop  it  as  I  had  other  evidences  of  my 
buried  past,  such  as  the  habit  of  using  words  like 
"catalysis"  and  "parachlorbenzamidine"  in  casual 
conversation. 

But  when  I  heard  of  the  pragmatists  I  knew 
that  I  was  no  longer  alone  in  the  world.  There 
were  others,  it  seemed,  even  men  of  standing  in 
philosophical  circles,  whose  minds  ran  in  this  way 
and  who  were  not  ashamed  to  own  it.  I  got  their 
names  and  started  to  find  them  wherever  they 
might  be.  I  ran  down  Dewey  in  the  Adirondacks 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

and  Bergson  in  the  Alps.  Poincare  I  unearthed 
in  a  Paris  flat,  James  I  heard  in  a  Columbia  lecture 
room ;  Ostwald  I  found  in  a  Saxon  village ;  Schiller 
I  caught  in  an  Oxford  quad.  I  was  thinking  of 
going  to  China  to  see  Wang  Yang-ming,  but  fortu- 
nately before  I  had  bought  my  steamer  ticket  or 
learned  Chinese  I  discovered  that  he  had  been  dead 
for  three  centuries.1 

Some  who  have  read  or  tried  to  read  what  I  said 
about  Bergson  and  Poincare  2  have  complained  that 
I  used  too  many  big  words,  and  one  man  wrote  me 
to  say  that  if  I  would  define  pragmatism  in  words 
of  one  syllable  perhaps  he  might  understand  what 
I  was  talking  about.  I  could  not  guarantee  that, 
of  course,  but  I  had  no  hesitation  about  complying 
with  his  request.  Confucius  wrote  his  immortal 
works  in  words  of  one  syllable,  and  I  would  not  be 
beaten  by  a  Chinaman.  Even  Herbert  Spencer 
once  condescended  to  translate  his  famous  definition 
of  evolution  into  Anglo-Saxon.  Since  I  am  obliged  to 
use  the  word  "pragmatism"  more  than  once  in  this 
book  I  may  forestall  criticism  by  putting  here  my 

1  The  Philosophy  of  Wang  Yang-ming  is  now  accessible  in  English, 
through  the  translation  of  Doctor  Henke  (Open  Court  Publishing 
Company,  Chicago,  1916). 

1  "  Major  Prophets  of  To-day, "  First  Series,  1914.  Little,  Brown,  and 
Company,  Boston. 

[192] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

MONOSYLLABIC  DEFINITION  OF  PRAGMATISM 

The  one  way  to  find  out  if  a  thing  is  true  is  to  try  it  and  see 
how  it  works.  If  it  works  well  for  a  long  time  and  for  all  folks, 
it  must  have  some  truth  in  it.  If  it  works  wrong  it  is  false,  at 
least  in  part.  If  there  is  no  way  to  test  it,  then  it  has  no  sense. 
It  means  naught  to  us  when  we  cannot  tell  what  odds  it  makes 
if  we  hold  to  it  or  not.  A  creed  is  just  a  guide  to  life.  We 
must  live  to  learn.  If  a  man  would  know  what  is  right  he  must 
try  to  do  what  is  right.  Then  he  can  find  out.  Prove  all  things 
and  hold  fast  to  that  which  is  good.  The  will  to  have  faith  in 
a  thing  oft  makes  the  faith  come  true.  So  it  can  be  said  in  a 
way  that  we  make  truth  for  our  own  use.  What  we  think  must 
be  of  use  to  us  in  some  way,  else  why  should  we  think  it  ?  The 
truth  is  what  is  good  for  us,  what  helps  us,  what  gives  us  joy 
and  strength,  what  shows  us  how  to  act,  what  ties  up  fact  to 
fact,  so  the  chain  will  hold,  what  makes  us  see  all  things  clear 
and  straight,  and  what  keeps  us  from  stray  paths  that  turn  out 
wrong  in  the  end.  Thought  is  a  tool,  a  means  to  an  end.  Man 
has  to  act,  and  so  he  must  think.  In  this  way  he  asks  the 
world  what  it  means  to  him.  The  need  for  thought  first  comes 
when  man  asks  "Why?"  or  "Which?"  so  that  he  may  know 
what  to  do  to  gain  his  end.  The  mind  as  it  thinks  makes  such 
facts  as  it  can  to  best  serve  its  use.  Out  of  the  facts  so  come 
by  is  made  a  law,  and  this  law  in  turn  serves  as  a  rule  to  guide 
one's  acts. 

But  the  reader  should  be  warned  that  no  two 
pragmatists  can  be  got  to  agree  upon  any  definition 
of  pragmatism,  and  that  the  opponents  of  prag- 
matism differ  still  more  widely  in  their  conception 
of  it.  Schiller  says  that  the  most  serious  draw- 
back in  the  name  is  that  "it  condemns  every  ex- 
ponent of  pragmatism  to  consume  at  least  half  an 
hour  of  his  limited  time  in  explaining  the  word." 
Schiller  himself  employs  the  term  "humanism" 
instead  which  being  less  novel  is  less  disturbing  to 

[193] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

the  conventional  mind  but  on  the  other  hand  has 
the  serious  disadvantage  of  having  been  applied  to 
a  very  different  thing,  namely,  the  spirit  of  the 
Renaissance.  Since  C.  S.  Peirce  who  invented  the 
term  "pragmatism"  and  William  James  who  popu- 
larized it  are  both  dead,  the  word  finds  few  de- 
fenders, although  the  mode  of  reasoning  it  tried  to 
stand  for  is  obviously  permeating  all  fields  of  thought. 
Like  many  other  things  pragmatism  seems  likely 
to  conquer  the  world  incognito.1 

A  man  in  the  act  of  dismounting  from  a  bicycle 
is  temporarily  incapacitated  from  the  effective  use 
of  either  mode  of  locomotion,  and  it  was  at  this 
psychological  moment  that  I  caught  Doctor  Schiller 

1  Of  course  any  one  who  wants  to  find  out  at  first  hand  what  prag- 
matism is  will  not  bother  with  what  I  say  but  will  turn  to  William 
James's  "Pragmatism"  or  invest  fifty  cents  in  the  briefer  and  more 
comprehensive  survey  of  the  movement  in  D.  L.  Murray's  primer  of 
"Pragmatism."  A  definition  of  pragmatism  that  is  anything  but 
monosyllabic  may  be  found  in  the  chapter  on  Dewey.  The  story  is 
told  of  a  college  woman  who  was  asked  what  Professor  James's  lecture 
on  pragmatism  was  going  to  be  about  and  replied  that  she  thought  it  had 
something  to  do  with  the  royal  succession  in  Austria.  Schiller's  own 
definition  is  to  be  found  in  his  "Studies  in  Humanism  : " 

Pragmatism  is  the  doctrine  (i)  that  truths  are  logical  values; 
(2)  that  the  "truth"  of  an  assertion  depends  on  its  application ;  (3)  that 
the  meaning  of  a  rule  lies  in  its  application ;  (4)  that  ultimately  all  mean- 
ing depends  on  purpose;  (5)  that  all  mental  life  is  purposive.  Prag- 
matism is  (6)  a  systematic  protest  against  all  ignoring  of  the  purposiveness 
of  actual  knowing,  and  it  is  (7)  a  conscious  application  to  epistemology 
(or  logic)  of  a  teleological  psychology,  which  implies,  ultimately,  a  vol- 
untaristic  metaphysic. 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

at  the  gate  of  Corpus  Christ!  College.  Otherwise 
I  might  have  missed  him,  for  he  is  as  alert  and  agile 
physically  as  he  is  mentally.  He  usually  spends 
his  summers  mountain  climbing  in  the  Alps,  though 
I  suppose  he  has  suspended  this  pastime  during  the 
last  three  years  while  the  Tyrolean  Alps  are  being 
used  for  other  purposes  than  tourism. 

Mr.  Schiller  wears  the  pointed  beard  that  was 
the  distinguishing  mark  of  the  radical  of  the  nineties. 
He  has  a  Shakespearean-shaped  forehead,  but  wears 
un-Shakespearean  glasses.  He  is  as  interesting  to 
converse  with  as  he  is  to  read,  which  is  more  than 
you  can  say  of  many  authors.  He  talks  best  while 
in  motion,  a  real  peripatetic  philosopher.  I  won- 
dered why  he  did  not  take  his  students  out  of  the 
old  gloomy  lecture  room  and  walk  with  them  as  he 
did  with  me,  up  and  down  the  lawn  between  the 
trees  and  the  ivy-clad  walls  of  the  college  garden. 
Curious  turf  it  was,  close-cut  and  springy;  I  never 
felt  anything  like  it  under  my  feet  except  an  asphalt 
pavement  on  a  hot  summer  day. 

But  I  suppose  it  would  be  against  the  Oxford 
customs  to  adopt  the  Greek  method  in  teaching 
Greek  philosophy.  At  any  rate  when  I  went  to 
Mr.  Schiller's  lecture  on  logic  I  found  it  as  con- 
ventional in  form  as  it  was  revolutionary  in  spirit. 

[195] 


SIX  MAJOR   PROPHETS 

One  would  have  thought  that  printing  had  never 
been  invented,  nor  even  the  mimeograph.  The 
lecture  was  delivered  slowly,  and  necessarily  with- 
out feeling,  clause  by  clause,  with  frequent  repeti- 
tions, so  every  word  could  be  taken  down.  It  was 
really  a  brilliant  lecture  as  I  discovered  afterwards 
when  I  read  over  my  notes,  but  at  the  time  it  sounded 
as  dull  as  proof-reading,  for  the  lecturer  dictated 
even  the  punctuation  marks,  as  he  went  along : 
"colon",  "Italics",  "inverted  commas",  etc.  The 
English  leave  out  the  punctuation  marks  in  legal 
documents  where  they  are  needed  and  put  them 
into  lectures  where  they  do  not  belong. 

The  students,  in  short  black  gowns,  were  seated 
uncomfortably  on  benches  carved  with  the  names 
of  many  generations,  and  were  writing  awkwardly 
on  long  boards.  These  were  furnished  with  ink- 
wells and  quill  pens,  although  the  students  sensibly 
used  fountain  pens.  I  suppose  it  is  somebody's 
perquisite  to  supply  such  things  as  quills  and  snuff 
to  the  college  even  if  nobody  uses  them.  An  Ameri- 
can college  president  told  me  that  he  thought  there 
was  more  graft  at  Oxford  than  anywhere  else  in 
the  world. 

If  Mr.  Schiller  had  remained  in  America  he  would 
now  be  lecturing  to  one  or  two  hundred  at  a  time, 

[196] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

largely  teachers  who  had  come  from  all  parts  of  the 
country  expressly  to  hear  his  ideas  and  who  would 
in  turn  transmit  them  to  their  students.  But  in 
that  room  there  were  only  these  fifteen  boys,  many 
of  whom  doubtless  had  no  special  interest  in  logic  or 
in  Schiller's  views  of  logic  and  who  took  his  lectures 
simply  because  they  were  required  for  examination, 
after  which  they  could  be  forgotten.  I  could  not 
help  contrasting  this  scene  with  the  big  lecture  room 
at  Jena,  modern  yet  satisfying  to  the  esthetic  and 
historic  taste,  where  Eucken's  fiery  eloquence  held 
men  and  women  gathered  from  five  continents,  or 
with  the  College  de  France,  where  Bergson  had 
attracted  an  even  larger  and  equally  cosmopolitan 
audience.  A  man  in  Schiller's  position  must  gain 
his  disciples  chiefly  through  his  books,  and  for  a 
man  of  Schiller's  attractive  personality  this  is  a  great 
disadvantage.  Print  can  never  take  the  place  of 
"the  spoken  word",  but  to  have  its  effect  the  spoken 
word  must  be  widely  heard. 

The  American  visitor  to  Oxford  meets  a  double 
mystery :  how  it  is  that  Oxford  accomplishes  so 
much  with  a  poor  and  antiquated  plant  and  how  it 
is  that  American  universities  do  not  accomplish 
more  with  their  modern  and  convenient  plants. 
One  hates  to  conclude  that  plumbing  and  ventila- 

[I97l 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

tion  are  incompatible  with  high  thinking.  But  if 
Spencer  is  right  in  defining  life  as  the  power  of 
adaptation  to  environment,  the  Oxford  dons  are 
most  alive  of  any  human  beings.  They  have  shown 
the  adaptability  of  hermit  crabs  in  fitting  themselves 
into  their  awkward  environment.  They  somehow 
manage  to  make  themselves  comfortable  in  build- 
ings that  a  New  York  tenement  house  inspector  — 
who  is  never  regarded  as  unduly  particular  — 
would  order  torn  down.  They  work  contentedly 
under  conditions  that  would  cause  a  strike  in  any 
well-regulated  union. 

'  Oxford  is  the  favorite  resort  of  American  tourists 
because  it  is  the  most  satisfactory  of  all  the  sights 
of  Great  Britain.  The  Tower  of  London  and 
Stratford-on-Avon  do  not  compare  with  it.  They 
are  as  disappointing  as  an  extinct  volcano.  But 
Oxford  is  an  antiquity  in  action.  Our  common 
feeling  in  regard  to  it  was  best  expressed  by  a  lady 
tourist  who  was  being  personally  conducted  through 
one  of  the  college  quadrangles  when  a  student  stuck 
his  head  out  of  a  dormer  window.  "Oh,  my!  Are 
these  ruins  inhabited?"  was  her  delighted  excla- 
mation. 

That  is  a  characteristic  trait  of  the  English,  the 
economical  utilization  of  antiquated  buildings  and 

[198] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

institutions.  The  House  of  Lords  actually  does 
something,  even  though  what  it  does  is  wrong. 
Westminster  Abbey  is  not  a  mere  mausoleum,  like 
the  Paris  Pantheon.  It  is  a  church  where  one  may 
worship  and  hear  sermons  of  decidedly  modernistic 
tone.  The  French,  when  they  made  up  their  minds 
that  they  did  not  need  a  King  any  longer,  cut  his 
head  off,  which  was  a  waste.  The  English  keep 
their  King  and  make  use  of  him  for  spectacular 
and  advertising  purposes.  Oxford  is  Cluny  and 
Sorbonne  in  one,  a  curious  combination  of  old  and 
new,  useful  and  superfluous,  progress  and  reaction, 
that  puzzles  and  fascinates  every  American  visitor. 

Ferdinand  Canning  Scott  Schiller,  M.A.,  D.Sc., 
Fellow  and  Senior  Tutor  of  Corpus  Christi  College, 
Oxford  —  to  give  for  once  his  full  name  and  titles 
-was  born  in  1864.  While  at  Rugby  he  showed 
decided  symptoms  of  intelligence,  so  he  was  picked 
as  a  probable  winner  in  the  scholastic  race  and  put 
in  training  for  the  classical  scholarships.  The 
British  turn  all  things  into  sport,  even  war  and 
education,  and  since  public  opinion  does  not  allow 
headmasters  to  keep  racehorses  they  indulge  their 
sporting  instincts  by  backing  their  boys  for  the 
Blue  Ribbon,  the  Balliol  Scholarships.  These  boys 
are  then  given  daily  doses  of  classical  verse  competi- 

[199] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

tion ;  I  infer  for  the  same  reason  that  jockeys  are 
fed  on  gin. 

It  is  curious  to  see  how  widely  educators  differ 
as  to  the  fundamental  principles  of  their  business. 
The  British  system  is  built  upon  competitions, 
prizes,  and  examinations.  The  American  state 
universities  in  the  days  of  their  pristine  purity  — 
I  mean  by  that  of  course,  when  I  was  a  student  — 
regarded  competition  as  vicious,  prizes  as  demoraliz- 
ing, and  examinations  as  an  evil  to  be  eliminated 
if  possible.  But  it  ill  becomes  a  pragmatist  to 
condemn  a  system  that  works  so  well  as  the  British, 
whatever  theoretical  objections  may  occur. 

Much  as  Schiller  detested  making  verses  in  a 
dead  language,  he  did  it  so  well  that  he  got  a  Major 
Exhibition.  This  gave  him  three  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  for  five  years  as  well  as  four  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars  in  Exhibitions  from  Rugby.  But  it  also  meant 
that  he  had  sold  himself  to  run  in  harness  for  another 
four  years  at  Balliol  and  was  obliged  to  master  a 
philosophy  which  he  already  felt  to  be  a  fraud. 
T.  H.  Green  had  died  just  before  Schiller  came  up 
and  had  been  sainted  for  the  greater  glory  of  Balliol, 
and  it  seemed  to  the  tutors  good  pedagogy  to  set 
their  pupils  to  begin  the  study  of  philosophy  with 
Green's  "Prolegomena  to  Ethics."  Most  of  the 

[  200] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

boys  confronted  with  this  abstruse  introduction 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  wonderful,  but 
that  they  had  no  head  for  metaphysics  because 
they  could  not  see  any  sense  in  it.  Schiller  very 
curiously  came  to  the  opposite  conclusion  from  the 
same  premise. 

Orthodox  Oxford  was  at  that  time  under  the 
sway  of  the  great  philosophic  Trinity  of  Plato, 
Aristotle,  and  Hegel,  which  was  supposed  somehow 
to  be  concordant  with  or  at  least  allied  to  the  theo- 
logical Trinity,  and  therefore  fit  food  for  the  souls 
of  innocent  young  men.  The  third  person  of  the 
philosophic  Trinity  was  kept  much  in  the  dark, 
because  the  tutors  generally  were  not  fond  of  read- 
ing German.  They  knew  still  less  of  science  and 
apparently  did  not  suspect  that  Darwin  and  his 
evolution  might  prove  to  have  some  bearing  upon 
philosophy. 

Schiller  took  his  First  Classes  at  Oxford,  although 
he  was  given  to  asking  awkward  questions  and  was 
known  to  be  reading  "out  of  bounds."  One  of  his 
examiners  complained  that  he  used  such  queer 
terms  in  his  papers,  "solipsism"  and  "epistemol- 
ogy"  for  instance. 

The  years  1893-1897  Schiller  spent  as  instructor 
at  Cornell  University,  and  at  the  end  of  that  period 

[201] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

an  amusing  incident  occurred,  though  what  it  was 
and  how  it  came  about  I  don't  know;  possibly  be- 
cause I  never  thought  it  best  to  inquire  of  any  of 
the  few  who  were  in  the  room  at  the  time.  The 
bare  fact  is  interesting  enough,  that  a  young  man 
who  had  written  one  of  the  most  brilliant  volumes 
of  the  times  on  metaphysics,  "Riddles  of  the  Sphinx", 
and  who  carried  in  his  pocket  a  call  to  teach  philoso- 
phy at  a  leading  college  of  Oxford,  was  flunked  in 
Cornell  on  his  oral  examination  for  Ph.D.  in  philos- 
ophy !  Anybody  who  is  curious  can  pick  up  half  a 
dozen  inconsistent  versions  of  this  famous  episode 
on  almost  any  campus.  One  is,  that  being  fortified 
by  the  crinkle  of  the  above  mentioned  letter  over 
his  heart  and  knowing  that  an  American  degree 
would  have  no  value  in  England,  Schiller  did  not 
take  the  examination  seriously  and  neglected  the 
necessary  cramming.  Another  version  of  the  story 
is  that  he  turned  tables  upon  his  examiners  by 
bringing  into  action  for  the  first  time  the  pragmatic 
arguments  so  much  to  their  discomfiture  and  be- 
wilderment that  he  was  penalized  for  these  foul 
blows.  But  probably  the  details,  if  one  knew  them, 
would  prove  to  be  quite  commonplace  compared 
with  either  of  these  versions  or  the  more  picturesque 
legends  that  are  in  circulation,  so  it  is  better  to  re- 

[202] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

main  in  ignorance  and  file  it  in  the  envelope  with 
such  cases  as  John  Henry  Newman,  who  got  only 
a  Third  Class ;  F.  H.  Bradley,  who  got  a  Second ; 
Gustave  Dore,  who  failed  in  drawing;  Darwin  who 
was  called  a  stupid  student,  Grant  who  was  grad- 
uated in  the  lower  half  of  his  class,  Mendel  who  was 
never  allowed  to  graduate  at  Vienna,  and  the  like, 
good  material  all  for  some  one  who  wants  to  investi- 
gate the  psychology  of  students  —  and  examiners. 

The  chief  benefit  that  Schiller  got  out  of  his 
American  sojourn  was  an  acquaintance  with  William 
James.  It  was  a  case  of  love  at  first  sight  and  of 
lifelong  devotion.  Schiller  dedicated  his  "Human- 
ism" "To  my  dear  friend,  the  humanest  of  philos- 
ophers, William  James,  without  whose  example 
and  unfailing  encouragement  this  book  would  never 
have  been  written." 

In  1897  Schiller  was  called  back  to  England  to 
become  tutor  in  Corpus  Christi  College.  The  presi- 
dent of  that  college,  the  late  Thomas  Fowler,  be- 
longed rather  to  the  pre-Hegelian  Oxford  generation 
of  the  Mill-British-empiricism  school  of  thought.  He 
liked  things  to  be  made  intelligible,  and  he  was  so  much 
struck  by  the  lucidity  of  Schiller's  "Riddles  of  the 
Sphinx"  that  he  called  him  from  Cornell  to  Oxford. 

Here  then  he  has  for  twenty  years  lived  the  quiet, 
[203] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

sheltered,  contemplative  life  of  the  Oxford  don, 
varied  only  by  such  daring  adventures  as  his  hunt 
for  the  hidden  fallacies  of  formal  logic,  his  single 
combats  with  Mr.  Bradley,  and  his  ascent  of  the 
bleak  heights  of  speculative  philosophy,  where  the 
Absolute  is  supposed  to  dwell  in  solitude.  Our 
American  universities  are  putting  up  some  very 
fair  imitations  of  Oxford  architecture  now.  Some 
have  transplanted  ivy  and  it  is  growing.  Some 
have  transplanted  tutors  and  they  are  growing. 
But  one  Oxford  custom  has  not  yet  been  introduced 
into  our  universities,  the  custom  of  giving  the  pro- 
fessors time  to  think.  In  Oxford  all  the  men  have 
time  to  think  and  some  of  them  do.  In  America 
if  a  man  shows  a  tendency  to  become  absorbed  in 
thought  he  is  made  a  dean  or  put  on  the  committee 
of  accredited  high  schools,  which  cures  him. 

In  the  British  "Who's  Who"  Mr.  Schiller's  recre- 
ations are  ordinarily  put  down  as  "mountaineering, 
golf,  etc."  But  in  one  edition  of  that  handy  volume 
of  contemporary  autobiography  it  is  stated  that 
his  chief  recreation  is  "editing  Mind!"  Thus  was 
revealed  the  secret  of  the  mysterious  appearance 
at  Christmas,  1901,  of  a  periodical  which  in  looks 
resembled  one  of  the  regular  numbers  of  that  staid 
blue-covered  review  of  philosophy,  Mind,  but  with 

[204] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

most  startling  contents.  The  frontispiece  is  a 
"Portrait  of  Its  Immanence,  the  Absolute."  This 
is  followed  by  an  article  on  "The  Place  of  Humour 
in  the  Absolute,  by  F.  H.  Badley";  "The  Critique 
of  Pure  Rot,  by  I.  Cant";  "A  Commentary  on  the 
Snark";  "More  Riddles  from  Worse  Sphinxes", 
and  the  like.  The  advertisements  were  likewise 
unusual  —  "A  Dictionary  of  Oxford  Mythology,  in 
six  volumes,  containing  a  complete  account  of  the 
stories  told  in  the  Common  Rooms  and  the  men  to 
whom  they  have  from  time  to  time  been  attached " ; 
"A  fine  consignment  of  assorted  Weltanschauungen 
just  received  from  Germany"  ;  phonograms  of  all 
the  lectures,  jokes  extra,  with  colored  cinemato- 
graphs of  the  most  famous  professors  in  action,  for 
armchair  study,  etc.  The  history  of  philosophy  in 
fifty-one  limericks,  covering  all  systems  from  Thales 
to  Nietzsche,  would  be  useful  on  examination  time 
by  students  of  "Philosophy  Four." 

We  hedonists,  said  Aristippus, 
Discomforts  detest  when  they  grip  us, 

So  wealth  we  adore, 

The  moment  live  for 
And  take  what  the  rich  'Arries  tip  us. 

The  infinite  self-absorbed  Brahma 
Was  dreaming  the  World-Panorama : 

[205] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

He  groaned  and  he  snored, 
Till  at  length  he  grew  bored, 
And  woke  up,  and  broke  up  the  Drama. 

"To  multiply  beings",  said  Occam, 
"  Is  needless,  'tis  better  to  dock  'em." 

So  he  seized  on  his  razor, 

This  pestilent  phraser, 
And  ran  out  to  bloodily  block  'em. 

A  pessimist,  great  Schopenhauer, 
Found  living  exceedingly  sour, 

At  Hegel  he  cursed, 

His  grievances  nursed, 
And  poured  forth  his  wrath  by  the  hour. 

As  will  be  seen  from  the  above,  Mind!  reads  much 
like  the  Junior  Annual  of  an  American  college,  but 
at  Oxford  the  students  are  deficient  in  journalistic 
enterprise,  so  the  duty  of  keeping  things  cheerful 
devolves  upon  their  betters.  According  to  its  cover 
Mind!  was  "edited  by  a  Troglodyte"  but  as  there  was 
only  one  philosopher  in  England  who  would  have  the 
cheek  to  do  it  and  who  could  parody  the  style  and 
expose  the  weak  points  of  the  regular  contributors  to 
Mind,  the  troglodyte  was  soon  tracked  to  his  cave. 
The  author  of  a  similar  jeu  d' esprit,  "The  Joysome 
History  of  Education",  which  surreptitiously  circu- 
lates about  Columbia  University,  has  so  far  as  I 
know  never  been  disclosed  to  the  public. 

[206] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

But  Schiller  has  not  been  able  to  confine  his 
humor  to  that  uniquity,  Mind!  He  allows  it  to 
creep  into  his  contributions  to  Min^-without-the- 
exclamation-point  and  other  serious  journals.  He 
is  a  keen  debater  and  does  not  follow  the  ordinary 
rules  of  fencing,  but  frequently  disconcerts  his  an- 
tagonists by  parrying  their  thrusts  with  a  pun  or 
a  personality.  He  is,  so  far  as  I  know,  the  first 
philosopher  to  find  room  for  jokes  in  his  formal 
philosophy,  as  the  following  passage  shows : 

When  we  map  out  the  whole  region  of  Truth- 
claim  or  Formal  Truth,  we  find  that  it  contains 
(i)  lies,  (2)  errors,  (3)  methodological  fictions, 
(4)  methodological  assumptions,  (5)  postulates, 
(6)  validated  truths,  (7)  axioms,  and  (8)  jokes. 

Most  philosophers  in  fact  would  not  only  ignore 
his  eighth  category,  but  would  neglect  his  first  and 
second,  accepting  any  statement  that  claimed  to 
be  true  and  devoting  themselves  to  the  study  of 
its  logical  implications.  But  the  pragmatist  is 
more  interested  in  finding  out  how  and  in  what 
way  an  assertion  comes  to  be  called  true  and  how 
it  makes  good  its  claim  after  it  has  been  asserted. 
As  Schiller  puts  it:1 

1  Address  on  "Error"  before  the  Congresso  Internazionale  di  Filosofia, 
Bologna,  1911. 

[207] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

What  then  is  common  to  all  sorts  of  Truth  and 
Error,  and  renders  them  species  of  a  common  genus  ? 
Nothing  but  their  psychological  side;  "truth"  is 
the  proper  term  for  what  satisfies,  "error"  for  what 
thwarts,  a  human  purpose  in  cognitive  activity. 

The  difference  between  Truth  and  Error,  there- 
fore, is  ultimately  one  in  value.  The  "true"  way 
of  conceiving  an  object  or  judging  a  situation  is 
simply  the  way  most  valuable  for  our  purpose ;  the 
"false"  way  is  one  which  is,  at  least  relatively, 
worthless.  "Truth"  is  a  eulogistic,  "error"  a 
dyslogistic,  way  of  valuing  a  cognitive  situation. 

Truth  and  Error  therefore  are  continuous,  as 
history  shows.  Either  may  develop  out  of  the 
other,  and  both  are  rooted  in  the  same  problems  of 
knowing,  which  are  ultimately  problems  of  living. 
The  "truths"  of  one  generation  become  the  "errors" 
of  the  next,  when  it  has  achieved  more  valuable  and 
efficient  modes  of  interpreting  and  manipulating 
the  apparent  "facts",  which  the  new  "truths"  are 
continuously  transforming.  And  conversely,  what 
is  now  scouted  as  "error"  may  hereafter  become 
the  fruitful  parent  of  a  long  progeny  of  "truths." 

It  follows  also  that  (as  every  examiner  who  marks 
a  paper  knows)  Truth  and  Error  admit  of  quantita- 
tive differences.  Both  can  vary  in  importance,  and 
can  attain  (or  fail  of)  their  purpose  to  a  greater  or  a 
less  degree.  But  neither  is  absolute.  An  answer 
to  a  question  is  in  general  called  true,  if  it  is  true 
enough  for  the  purpose  in  hand.  But  this  does  not 
preclude  a  greater  exactitude  if  (for  a  different 
purpose)  it  should  be  required.  It  is  a  true  answer 
to  the  question  —  "when  do  you  leave?"  to  reply 
"to-morrow";  but  if  necessary  I  can  specify  the 
train  I  go  by.  Thus  the  demand  for  absolute  exact- 

[208] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

ness  is  both  humanly  unnecessary  and  scientifically 
unmeaning.  Indeed  a  degree  of  accuracy  higher 
than  the  situation  demands  would  be  irrational. 
No  one  wants  to  know  the  height  of  a  mountain  in 
millimeters,  and  if  he  did,  he  could  not  ascertain  it, 
because  his  methods  would  not  measure  fine  enough. 
Scientific  truths  are  infinitely  perfectible,  but  never 
absolute.1 

Now  if  philosophers  are  wise,  they  will  accept  this 
sort  of  truth,  and  admit  that  any  truth  is  "absolute" 
enough  so  soon  as  it  is  equal  to  the  demands  made 
upon  it,  while  none  must  ever  be  so  absolute  as  to 
become  incorrigible  and  incapable  of  further  growth. 

A  human  factor,  an  element  of  personal  desire, 
enters  into  all  our  thinking;  otherwise  why  should 
we  bother  to  think  ?  Even  our  most  abstract  and 
general  theorems  have  a  hidden  Hinterland  of  sub- 
conscious motives,  limitations,  and  conditions. 

The  abstract  statement  that  "two  and  two  make 
four"  is  always  incomplete.  We  need  to  know  to 
what  "twos"  and  "fours"  the  dictum  is  applied. 
It  would  not  be  true  of  lions  and  lambs,  nor  of  drops 
of  water,  nor  of  pleasures  and  pains.2 

1  I  find  the  following  incident  reported  of  a  Boston  school  which 
would  indicate  that  the  philosophy  of  William  James  is  influencing  the 
younger  generation  in  his  home  city : 

"Well,  Waldo,"  said  the  professor  of  geometry,  "can  you  prove  any 
of  to-day's  theorems  ?" 

"No,  sir,  I'm  afraid  I  can't,"  said  Waldo  hopefully;  "but  I  can 
render  several  of  them  highly  probable." 

1  "  Studies  in  Humanism." 

[209] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

This  suppressed  context  of  thought  is  of  course 
largely  personal,  and  with  it  is  suppressed  the 
human  interest  of  philosophy.  Hence  the  endeavor 
to  drag  it  to  light  was  very  properly  called  Human- 
ism. Schiller  conceives  every  thought  as  some  one's 
experiment  for  which  he  is  responsible. 

"Every  thought",  he  says,  "is  an  act  and  even 
the  most  'theoretical'  assertions  are  made  to  gratify 
an  interest."  He  finds  in  the  present  war  a  most 
unpleasant  confirmation  of  his  theory  that  thought 
is  subordinate  to  action  and  never  free  from  human 
volitional  influence : 1 

If  only  philosophers  could  be  got  to  face  the  facts 
of  actual  life,  could  any  of  them  fail  to  observe  the 
enormous  object-lesson  in  the  truth  of  pragmatism 
which  the  world  has  been  exhibiting  in  the  present 
crisis?  Everywhere  the  "truths"  believed  in  are 
relative  to  the  nationality  and  sympathies  of  their 
believers.  It  is,  indeed,  lamentable  that  such  an 
orgy  of  the  will  to  believe  should  have  been  needed 
to  illustrate  the  pragmatic  nature  of  truth,  but  who 
will  dispute  that  for  months  say  999  persons  out  of 
1000  have  been  believing  what  they  please,  and  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously  making  it  "true"  with  a 
fervor  rarely  bestowed  even  by  the  most  ardent 
philosophers  on  the  most  self-evident  truths  ?  No 
improbability,  no  absurdity,  no  atrocity  has  been  too 
great  to  win  credence,  and  the  uniformity  of  human 
nature  has  been  signally  attested  by  the  way  in 

1  "Realism,  Pragmatism  and  William  James."     Mind,  1915. 
[210] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

which  the  same  stories  (mutatis  mutandis)  have  been 
credited  on  both  sides. 

Since  the  controversy  over  pragmatism  hinges  on 
this  theory  of  truth,  I  will  quote  in  condensed  form 
what  Schiller  says  in  his  discussion  with  Miss 
Stebbing : l 

It  is  an  inevitable  corollary  of  the  belief  in  ab- 
solute truth  that  absolute  truth  cannot  find  lodgment 
in  human  mind,  nor  be  attained  by  way  of  human 
science.  We  were  led,  therefore,  to  examine  how 
in  fact  belief  in  the  accepted  "truths"  grew  up. 
We  found  that  every  thought  was  essentially  a  per- 
sonal experiment  that  might  succeed  or  fail,  and  that 
whether  it  did  or  not  depended  on  its  consequences. 
But  it  seemed  clear  that  "true"  was  the  term  ap- 
propriated by  language  to  the  success,  as  false  was 
to  failure,  of  such  experiments.  Of  course  both 
"success"  and  "truth"  are  relative  terms.  Ab- 
solute "success"  is  found  as  little  as  absolute  "truth" 
and  for  the  same  reason.  All  "truths"  remain 
(preferred)  truth-claims  and  retain  an  infinite  appe- 
tite for  assimilating  further  confirmation. 

But  there  does  come  a  point,  alike  in  the  individ- 
ual's experience  and  in  social  opinion  at  any  time, 
at  which  it  seems  that  certain  truth-claims  have 
received  confirmation  enough  to  make  them  prag- 
matically certain.  These  form  the  reigning  truths. 
But  they  never  form  a  closed  oligarchy  or  an  im- 
mutable system.  Merit  can  force  its  way  into  their 
ranks,  and  inefficiency  entails  degradation.  Thus, 
though  their  position  is  (psychologically)  unchal- 

1  Mind,  vol.  22,  p.  534,  1913. 
[2U] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

lenged,  it  is  never  (logically)  unchallenged.  So  it 
can  not  be  said  that  because  they  work  they  are 
absolutely  true.  They  are  called  true  because  they 
work,  and  there  is  no  sense  in  calling  anything  true 
for  any  other  reason ;  but  the  progress  of  knowledge 
may  nevertheless  supersede  them  at  the  next  step. 

Since  Schiller  indignantly  repudiates  the  formula 
often  ascribed  to  pragmatism  that  "All  that  works 
is  true",  and  since  Mr.  Bradley  has  come  to  say1 
"I  agree  that  any  idea  which  in  any  way  'works' 
has  in  some  degree  truth",  it  would  seem  that  these 
old  antagonists  are  really  not  so  far  apart  in  their 
opinions  as  their  words  would  indicate. 

For  classical  authority  for  his  Humanism  Schiller 
goes  back  to  the  famous  dictum  of  Protagoras : 
"Man  is  the  measure  of  all  things."  In  Plato's 
"Dialogues",  Protagoras  is  represented  as  having 
been  argued  quite  out  of  court  by  Socrates,  but 
Schiller  appeals  to  posterity  against  this  decision,  and 
he  has  written  several  supplemental  dialogues  of  his 
own  to  prove  that  Protagoras  was  really  in  the  right.2 

Schiller's  most  serious  work  so  far  is  his  destruc- 
tive criticism  of  the  Aristotelian  logic.  Since  my 

1  "Essays  on  Truth  and  Reality"  by  F.  H.  Bradley.     See  Schiller's 
"New  Developments  of  Mr.  Bradley's  Philosophy"  in  Mind,  1915. 

2  See   "Protagoras   the   Humanist",   and    "Gods    and   Priests"   in 
"Studies  in  Humanism",   and   "Useless   Knowledge"   and   "Plato  or 
Protagoras  "  in  "Humanism." 

[212] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

own  study  of  logic  came  to  an  abrupt  end  as  soon  as 
I  had  secured  a  passing  mark  on  Jevons,  I  shall  not 
attempt  to  express  an  opinion  upon  the  value  of 
Schiller's  "Formal  Logic",  but  will  instead  quote 
from  the  review  of  the  volume  by  Professor  Dewey 
of  Columbia.1 

In  substance,  the  volume  (a  large  octavo  of  about 
four  hundred  pages)  is  an  unrelenting,  dogged  pur- 
suit of  the  traditional  logic,  chapter  by  chapter, 
section  by  section.  Not  a  single  doctrine,  nor,  I 
think,  a  single  distinction  of  the  official  textbooks 
escapes  Schiller's  demolishing  hand.  .  .  .  A  vital  and 
wholesome  sense  of  the  realities  of  actual  thinking 
pervades  the  whole  book;  it  supplies  the  back- 
ground against  which  the  criticisms  of  formal  doc- 
trine are  projected.  Mr.  Schiller  brings  out,  in  case 
after  case,  with  a  cumulative  effect  which  is  fairly 
deadly,  that  at  the  crucial  point  each  formal  dis- 
tinction is  saved  from  complete  meaninglessness 
only  by  an  unacknowledged  and  surreptitious  appeal 
to  some  matter  of  context,  need,  aim,  and  use.  Why 
not,  then,  frankly  recognize  the  indispensableness 
of  such  volitional  and  emotional  factors,  and  instead 
of  pretending  to  a  logic  that  excludes  them,  build 
up  a  logic  that  corresponds  to  human  intellectual 
endeavor  and  achievement.  It  is  difficult  to  see 
how  even  the  most  hardened  devotee  of  a  purely 
theoretical  intellectualism  can  lay  down  the  book 
without  such  questions  haunting  him.  .  .  . 

1  The  Independent.  Schiller's  "Formal  Logic"  gave  rise  to  much 
controversy.  See  for  instance  Mind,  vol.  23,  p.  I,  398,  558.  One  critic 
called  it  "  a  sympathetic  appreciation  of  all  known  logical  fallacies." 

[213] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

While  traditional  logic  has  much  to  say  about 
truth,  the  truth  it  talks  about  is  mere  formal  con- 
sistency, since  it  declines  to  consider  the  material 
application  of  its  premises.  Relevance  —  a  funda- 
mental conception  of  concrete  thought  —  is  excluded 
because  it  goes  with  selection,  with  selection  of  the 
part  that  is  useful,  while  formal  logic  professes  an 
all-inclusive  ideal.  Selection,  moreover,  is  a  volun- 
tary and  hence  arbitrary  act,  and  so  is  shut  out  from 
a  doctrine  that  acknowledges  only  what  is  purely 
theoretical.  Finally,  formal  logic,  with  its  creed  of 
absolute  certitude,  abhors  the  very  mention  of  ad- 
venture and  risk,  the  life  blood  of  actual  human 
thinking,  which  is  aroused  by  doubts  and  questions, 
and  proceeds  by  guesses,  hypotheses,  and  experi- 
ments, to  a  decision  which  is  always  somewhat  ar- 
bitrary and  subject  to  the  risk  of  later  revision. 

Much  of  the  criticism  of  "Formal  Logic"  con- 
tained in  this  large  volume  is  too  technical  for  any 
save  professionals  to  follow,  but  at  my  request  Mr. 
Schiller  was  kind  enough  to  write  an  article  for 
The  Independent  putting  the  main  points  of  it  in  a 
form  "understanded  of  the  common  people."  From 
this  I  quote  the  passage  in  which  he  shows  that  the 
syllogism  cannot  lead  unerringly  to  new  truth : 

The  peculiar  aim  of  logic  hitherto  has  been  to 
discover  a  form  of  "valid  inference."  By  this  was 
meant  a  form  of  words  so  fool-proof  that  it  could 
not  be  misapplied,  and  that  the  use  of  it  would 
absolutely  guarantee  the  soundness  of  the  con- 
clusion if  only  the  reasoning  had  been  fortunate 

[214] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

enough  to  start  from  true  premises.  In  the  syllo- 
gism it  was  supposed  that  such  a  form  had  been 
found.  From  all  swans  are  white  and  this  bird  is  a 
swan  it  was  to  follow  inevitably  that  this  bird  is 
white,  and  the  course  of  nature  would  eternally  con- 
form to  the  prophetic  demonstrations  of  logic. 

Yet  logicians  also  had  soon  to  note  that  even  for- 
mally there  was  something  wrong  about  this  syllo- 
gistic form.  It  seemed  to  "prove"  what  was  either 
nothing  new  or  nothing  known.  To  justify  the 
"major  premise"  "all  swans  are  white",  must  not 
its  assertor  have  already  seen  this  swan  and  know 
that  it  is  white  ?  Or,  if  he  did  not  know  this,  is  he 
not  risking  an  assertion  about  some  "swans"  on 
the  strength  of  what  he  knows  about  others  ?  And 
what  right  had  he  thus  to  argue  from  the  known  to 
the  unknown?  Can  an  "inference"  be  "valid"  if 
it  involves  a  risk  ? 

When  therefore  black  swans  arrive  from  Australia 
to  upset  his  dogmatizing,  what  is  he  to  do  ?  Will 
he  say  his  major  premise  was  a  definition,  and  no 
bird,  however  swan-like,  shall  be  called  a  "swan" 
if  it  cannot  pass  his  color-test  ?  If  so,  his  reasoning 
is  still  caught  in  the  old  dilemma,  that  he  either 
"proves"  nothing  new  or  begs  the  question  in  an- 
other way.  For  he  then  had  no  right  to  assert  his 
"minor  premise",  this  bird  is  a  swan,  if  he  knew  not 
it  was  white.  Or  will  he,  desperately,  say  "in  both 
of  these  interpretations  the  syllogistic  form  is 
fatuous ;  but  kindly  understand  it  as  asserting  a 
law  of  nature  which  is  immutable,  and  applied  to 
the  particular  case  in  the  minor  premise."  But,  if 
so,  how  does  he  know  that  his  "law"  applies  to  the 
"case"?  that  the  "case"  is  such  as  he  takes  it  to 
be?  that  he  has  picked  out  the  right  "law"  to  deal 

[215] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

with  the  case  and  formulated  it  correctly  ?  If  it 
is  quite  certain  that  the  "law"  applies  to  the  "case", 
his  conclusion  proves  nothing  new;  if  it  is  not,  he 
runs  the  risk  that  the  case  of  which  he  is  trying  to 
predict  the  behavior  may  be  so  exceptional  as  to 
break  or  modify  his  law.  And  if  he  runs  that  risk, 
is  he  not  renouncing  his  ideal  of  reaching  fool-proof 
certainty  ? 

There  seems  to  be  no  way,  therefore,  of  saving 
"valid  inference",  of  so  interpreting  the  syllogism 
that  it  is  both  formally  valid  and  humanly  instruc- 
tive. If  it  is  to  be  instructive,  it  can  only  enlighten 
human  ignorance,  and  then  its  premises  cannot  be 
certainly  true.1 

Some  critics,  having  in  mind  how  little  attention 
is  paid  to  formal  logic  in  American  schools,  have 
expressed  the  opinion  that  Schiller  was  wasting  his 
powder  on  dead  game.  But  however  little  it  may 
be  used  in  reasoning,  formal  logic  is  still  the  object 
of  formal  reverence  everywhere,  and  in  Oxford  it  is 
strongly  entrenched  and  heavily  subsidized  as 
Schiller  says  in  the  passage : 

That  the  same  doctrine,  in  perfect  verbal  con- 
tinuity, should  have  been  taught  and  examined  on 
for  over  two  thousand  years  would  be  the  most 
stupendous  fact  in  education,  were  it  not  surpassed 
by  the  still  more  surprising  fact  that  during  all  this 
time  no  one  has  arisen  to  call  it  nonsense  through 
and  through,  and  that  every  would-be  improvement 

1  "Logic  versus  Life"  in  The  Independent,  vol.  73,  p.  375. 

[216] 


F.   C.   S.    SCHILLER 

has  been  countered  by  the  retort  that  it  was  "not 
in  Aristotle."  .  .  .  The  great  mass  of  logicians  have 
always  been  true  to  their  salt.  For  Aristotle  is  still 
very  heavily  endowed. 

In  the  University  of  Oxford  alone  three  philos- 
ophy professors,  twenty-eight  litera  humaniores 
tutors,  and  about  460  classical  scholars  and  exhibi- 
tioners are  paid,  at  an  annual  cost  of  over  £50,000, 
to  believe  that  the  theory  of  thought  has  stood  still, 
or  stumbled  into  error  when  it  tried  to  move,  ever 
since  the  composition  of  the  "Organon",  and  that 
all  modern  science  may  be  read  into  and  out  of 
the  obscurities  of  the  "Posterior  Analytics."  The 
Secret  Doctrine  in  which  this  is  taught  has  never 
been  divulged  in  print,  but  examiners  know  that 
there  are  passages  in  the  ordinary  Oxford  Logic 
Lecture  which  must  have  been  copied  down  by 
two  hundred  generations  of  students  ever  since 
the  twelfth  century. 

Like  James  and  Bergson  and  unlike  Dewey, 
Schiller  has  interested  himself  in  psychical  research 
as  a  possible  way  of  proving  personal  immortality.1 
He  does  not  seem  from  his  published  work  to  have 
yet  obtained  any  satisfactory  experimental  evidence 
of  a  future  life,  but  he  regards  immortality  as  an 
ethical  postulate,  necessary  to  the  conceptions  of  a 
moral  universe,  for  if  we  reject  it  "we  should  be 
plunged  in  that  unfathomable  abyss  where  Scepti- 

»The  latter  part  of  "Humanism"  and  of  "Riddles  of  the  Sphinx" 
is  devoted  to  this  topic.  Schiller  succeeded  Bergson  as  President  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research  in  1914. 

[2I7] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

cism  fraternizes  with  Pessimism  and  they  hug  their 
miseries  in  chaos  undisguised." 

But  in  his  earliest  work  "Riddles  of  the  Sphinx" 
he  expressed  the  opinion  that  nowadays  few  people 
took  a  real  interest  in  the  question  of  immortality 
and  that  it  had  little  influence  upon  conduct.  This 
unconventional  opinion  was  confirmed  many  years 
later  when  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  con- 
ducted a  questionnaire  on  the  subject  and  found 
that  of  the  many  thousand  persons  interrogated  a 
large  proportion  did  not  regard  a  future  life  as  of 
practical  importance  to  them.1 

Within  the  last  few  years  Schiller  has  entered  a 
new  field,  the  eugenics  movement,  where  his  keen 
wit  and  power  of  analysis  are  doing  good  service. 
In  his  review  of  Nietzsche's  work 2  he  recognizes 
that  Nietzsche  is  not  without  reason  when  he  asserts 
that  the  moral  qualities  he  dislikes,  such  as  pity 
and  sympathy,  may  lead  to  decadence,  for,  as 
Schiller  elsewhere  shows,  social  reform,  unless  it  is 
eugenically  directed,  may  lead  to  the  growth  of  the 
evils  it  aims  to  alleviate.  In  a  very  remarkable 
article  published  shortly  before  the  outbreak  of  the 

1  See  Schiller's  article  on  this  in  The  Independent  of  September  15, 
1904,  or  in  Fortnightly  Review,  vol.  76,  p.  430. 
*  Quarterly  Review,  1913. 

[218] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

war,1  he  foretold  the  collapse  of  European  civiliza- 
tion and  suggested  that  the  Japanese  or  Chinese, 
through  the  greater  importance  they  attach  to  the 
family,  might  be  found  more  worthy  of  preeminence. 

If  the  ancestor-worship  of  the  animist  can  be 
developed  into  the  descendant-worship  of  the  eugen- 
ist,  I  can  see  no  reason  why  one  should  not  prognos- 
ticate for  both  of  them  a  rosier  future  and  a  more 
assured  continuance  than  for  our  European  societies, 
if  these  latter  yield  to  the  pressure  of  those,  whether 
called  individualists,  socialists,  or  militarists,  who 
tempt  them  to  destruction. 

The  danger  to  European  culture  lies,  he  says,  in 
that  "our  Hellenistic  political  philosophy  exhibits 
all  the  marks  of  senile  dementia  and  progressive 
paranoia." 

The  evidence  goes  to  show  that  throughout  the 
most  valuable  part  of  the  nation,  not  only  in  the 
upper  classes  but  also  in  the  middle  classes  and  in 
the  best  parts  of  the  working  classes,  the  birth-rate 
per  marriage  has  in  a  generation  sunk  from  four 
and  a  half  to  two,  and  is  now  only  half  the  size 
required  to  keep  up  the  numbers  in  those  classes. 
In  other  words,  society  is  now  so  ordered  that  in 
every  generation  it  sheds  one-half  of  the  classes  it 
itself  values  most  highly,  and  supplies  their  places 
with  the  offspring  of  the  feeble-minded  and  casual- 
labourer  classes,  whose  families  still  average  more 

1  "Eugenics  and  Politics"  in  The  Hibbert  Journal,  January,  1914. 
[219] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

than  seven.  What  seriously  aggravates  the  evil  is 
the  whole  trend  of  social  legislation.  Social  reform 
costs  money,  and  the  money  is  raised  by  taxation, 
which  bears  very  hardly  on  the  middle  classes,  who 
cannot  curtail  luxuries  like  the  rich,  and  will  not 
lower  their  standard  of  comfort.  They  meet  the 
extra  expense,  therefore,  by  further  postponing  the 
age  of  marriage,  and  further  reducing  their  output 
of  children.  One  of  the  chief  effects,  therefore,  of 
our  present  methods  of  improving  social  conditions 
is  to  deteriorate  the  race.  And  this  in  a  twofold 
manner :  they  eliminate  the  middle  class,  and  they 
promote  the  survival  of  the  unfit  and  defective. 

It  is  perfectly  possible,  therefore,  to  tax  the  middle 
classes  out  of  existence.  Indeed,  it  has  been  done. 
History  exhibits  a  great  object-lesson  in  the  decline 
of  the  Roman  empire.  This  appears  to  have  been 
mainly  due  to  an  unscientific  system  of  taxation 
which  crushed  the  middle  class  and  left  no  breed- 
ing ground  for  ability  and  ambition  between  the 
millionaire  nobles,  who  had  nothing  to  rise  to,  and 
the  pauperised  masses,  who  had  no  chance  of  rising. 
Consequently,  the  empire  had  to  take  from  without 
its  borders  the  men  it  needed  to  conduct  its  military 
and  civil  administration.  The  barbarians  alone 
could  furnish  the  men  to  run  the  empire,  and  con- 
sequently the  barbarians  inevitably  came  to  overrun 
the  empire. 

The  Great  War  which  he  could  not  foresee  has 
immeasurably  accelerated  the  degenerative  process 
which  he  foretold.  The  death  roll  of  university 
students  and  graduates,  representing,  however  in- 
adequate the  examination  system,  a  selected  class 

[220] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

of  young  men  of  superior  intellectual  ability,  is 
probably  higher  than  in  any  other  class.  When  I 
visited  Oxford  a  few  years  before  the  war  the  students 
were  already  drilling  for  the  impending  conflict  and 
practically  all  who  were  eligible  enlisted  at  the  first 
call.  Raising  an  army  by  appeals  to  patriotism  as 
was  done  in  England  means  sending  to  the  front  to 
bear  the  brunt  of  battle  longest  those  who  are  most 
energetic,  self-sacrificing,  and  intelligent,  while  the 
slackers,  the  incompetent,  the  weaklings,  the  self- 
ish, and  the  dull  were  left  to  the  last  or  not  taken 
at  all. 

Besides  this  the  burden  of  taxation  resting  upon 
the  middle  classes  that  Schiller  thought  unbear- 
able in  1914  has  been  multiplied  and  will  act  as  a 
deterrent  to  large  families  more  strongly  than  ever 
in  the  future.  A  Royal  Commission  has  been  ap- 
pointed to  consider  methods  for  checking  the  alarm- 
ing decline  in  the  birth-rate. 

One  anti-eugenic  agency  which  Schiller  fails  to 
mention  but  which  strikes  an  outsider  as  very 
serious  is  Labanism.  It  was  formerly  the  custom 
to  require  all  Oxford  fellows  to  remain  celibate. 
Later  they  were  allowed  to  marry  after  serving  seven 
years,  whence  the  name.  Recently  this  prohibition 
has  been  removed,  but  the  antiquated  social  or- 

[221! 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

ganization  of  the  colleges  acts  as  a  practical  deterrent 
of  marriage.  So  by  this  elaborate  and  expensive 
system  of  examination,  competitions,  and  promo- 
tions —  which  unfortunately  is  not  so  inefficient  as 
its  occasional  mistakes  might  lead  us  to  think  — 
the  university  prevents  those  whom  it  deems  to 
have  the  brightest  minds  from  transmitting  their 
mental  endowments  to  posterity.  The  devil  could 
not  have  devised  a  more  ingenious  scheme  for  the 
promotion  of  mediocrity.  Since  Oxford  has  been 
in  existence  for  about  eight  hundred  years  it  must 
have  had  a  considerable  influence  on  the  reduction 
of  British  genius. 

As  Schiller  points  out,  any  measures  to  be  eugeni- 
cally  effective  must  apply  to  the  young.  The  re- 
wards bestowed  upon  ability  are  not  only  frequently 
misapplied  but  they  are  invariably  too  long  delayed. 
The  youthful  genius  is  too  often  forced  to  give  up 
having  a  family  or  compelled  to  support  it  on  faith, 
hope  and  charity.  To  this  defect  in  our  civiliza- 
tion Schiller  has  given  the  apt  name  of  "social 
hysteresis." 1  , 

In  all  the  professions  (except,  perhaps,  that  of 
the  actress)  the  young  are  underpaid,  and  established 
reputations  are  overpaid.  It  would  be  eugenically 

1  "Practical  Eugenics  in  Education." 
[222  ] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

preferable  to  do  the  opposite.  Yet  the  existing 
practice  is  largely  due  to  unintentional  stupidity, 
and  failure  to  discover  ability  soon  enough.  Now 
to  the  individual  this  system  brings  compensation, 
if  he  lives  long  enough,  because  he  continues  to  be 
rewarded  for  work  he  has  done  long  ago,  and  even 
is  no  longer  capable  of  doing,  and  is  eventually  raised 
to  the  status  of  a  "grand  old  man"  whom  ancient 
institutions  delight  to  honour,  by  dint  of  sheer 
longevity.  But  eugenically  this  social  hysteresis, 
this  delay  in  recompensing  merit,  has  a  fatal  effect. 
It  renders  the  capable,  ambitious  and  rising  members 
of  the  professional  classes  unduly  sterile,  owing  to 
compulsory  celibacy,  postponement  of  marriage, 
overwork,  etc.  Thus  a  large  proportion  of  the  ability 
which  rises  to  the  top  of  the  social  ladder  lasts  only 
for  one  generation,  and  does  not  permanently  benefit 
the  race. 

From  this  passage  it  will  be  seen  that  Schiller 
does  not  fall  into  the  common  fallacy  of  uncon- 
sciously assuming  that  the  upper  classes  of  our 
present  social  system  necessarily  consist  of  superior 
individuals.  But  he  does  lay  stress  upon  some- 
thing often  overlooked,  that  this  assumption  is 
more  justified  as  society  becomes  more  democratic : 

Precisely  in  proportion  as  a  society  improves  the 
opportunities  of  the  able  to  rise,  it  must  accelerate 
the  elimination  of  fitness  in  the  racial  stock.  So 
long  as  a  relatively  rigid  social  order  rendered  it 
almost  impossible  for  ability  to  rise  from  the  ranks, 
reservoirs  of  ability  could  accumulate  unseen  in  the 

[223! 


SIX   MAJOR   PROPHETS 

lower  social  strata,  and  burst  forth  in  times  of  need, 
as  in  the  French  Revolution :  but  the  more  success- 
fully a  carri'ere  ouverte  aux  talents  is  instituted,  the 
more  surely  are  these  strata  kept  drained,  and  in- 
capacitated from  retrieving  the  waste  of  ability  in 
the  upper  layers  of  society.  Now  it  is  doubtless 
true  that  the  primary  need  of  society  is  to  find 
persons  capable  of  conducting  its  affairs  ably,  and 
that  a  social  order  which  does  not  allow  ability  to 
rise  is  therefore  bad  :  but  nations  cannot  with  im- 
punity so  order  themselves  as  to  eliminate  the  very 
qualities  they  most  admire  and  desire,  and  must 
husband  their  resources  in  men  as  in  the  other  sources 
of  their  wealth  and  welfare.1 

That  is  to  say,  it  did  not  matter  much  if  in  former 
times  the  nobility  did  tend  to  die  out  in  a  few  gen- 
erations, for  in  hereditable  ability  they  were  not 
much  above  the  average.  But  in  the  more  just 
regime  that  we  are  trying  to  introduce,  especially 
in  America,  when  the  opportunities  for  higher  edu- 
cation and  advancement  are  extended  to  the  gifted 
of  all  classes,  it  will  be  disastrous  if  the  professional 
and  well-to-do  classes  fail  to  contribute  their  share 
to  the  future  population,  for  it  means  a  continuous 
reversal  of  the  method  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
by  which  evolution  has  been  accomplished.  This  is 
not  a  law  that  man  can  repeal  however  he  may  dis- 
regard it.  So  it  happens  that  civilized  societies  tend 

1  "Practical  Eugenics  in  Education." 
[224] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

to  die  at  the  top  and  the  human  race  makes  little  or 
no  progress  in  native  ability.     As  Schiller  says : 

The  inventor  of  the  wheel  or  even  of  a  new  mode 
of  chipping  flints  may  well  have  been  as  great  a 
genius  as  the  human  race  has  produced,  and  it  ac- 
cords well  with  this  that  the  early  paleolithic  races 
seem  to  have  possessed  a  cranial  capacity,  not  less, 
but  greater  than  our  own.  For  in  the  dim  red  dawn 
of  man  the  fool-killing  apparatus  of  nature  was 
terribly  effective,  and  society  could  do  little  to 
mitigate  its  horrors  and  to  protect  its  inefficient 
members. 

The  injustice,  and  what  is  more  important,  the 
injurious  effects  of  the  present  distribution  of  honors 
and  emoluments  he  exposes  in  his  article  on  "Na- 
tional Self-Selection"  : 

Is  it  not  nonsense  to  say  that  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  is  paid  £15,000  a  year  and  Prof.  J.  J. 
Thomson  seven  or  eight  hundred,  because  the  per- 
sons fitted  to  perform  the  latter's  functions  are 
twenty  times  as  common  as  those  suited  to  the 
former's  ?  Is  not  the  real  reason  plainly  that  the 
former  is  the  beneficiary  of  a  long  social  develop- 
ment which  has  liberally  endowed  the  Church,  while 
the  social  appreciation  of  the  value  of  science  is 
only  just  beginning,  and  has  not  yet  raised  the 
makers  of  new  truths  to  a  par  with  the  custodians 
of  time-honoured  revelations  ?  Our  example,  how- 
ever, draws  attention  to  a  very  general  fact,  fiz., 
that  the  social  position  of  various  functions  is  very 

[225] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

largely  the  product  of  past  valuations  which  have 
persisted  from  mere  habit.  Hence  their  present 
salaries  do  not  really  prove  that  an  Archbishop  is 
twenty  times  as  valuable  to  a  nation  as  a  scientific 
genius,  or  thrice  as  precious  as  a  Premier,  nor  even 
that  men  now  think  so.  How  many  of  us,  for  ex- 
ample, really  now  believe  that  mere  descent  from 
an  illiterate  medieval  baron  attests  sufficient  merit 
to  entitle  a  man  to  a  hereditary  seat  in  the  House  of 
Lords  ?  If  we  continued  to  value  fighting  qualities 
as  highly  as  of  yore,  we  should  promote  our  actual 
fighting  men.  When  we  want  really  to  defend  the 
House  of  Lords,  we  point  to  its  sagacity  in  gauging 
the  will  of  the  people  and  to  the  economic  value  of 
its  attractiveness  for  foreign  heiresses. 

Hence  one  of  the  chief  needs  of  a  society  which 
desires  to  reconstitute  itself  on  eugenical  principles 
is  a  thorough  revision  of  social  status.  It  must 
bring  the  social  position  of  various  services  into 
closer  agreement  with  their  present  value.  And  it 
must  induce  a  greater  feeling  of  responsibility  about 
the  popular  valuations  and  transvaluations  of 
functions,  which  are  constantly  exalting  the  posi- 
tion of  the  caterers  to  individual  pleasures  above 
the  consolidators  of  man's  permanent  welfare.  It 
is  not  good  for  a  society  that  a  cricketer  or  a  prize- 
fighter or  a  dancer  should  be  esteemed  and  rewarded 
more  highly  than  the  man  who  discovers  a  cure  for 
malaria  or  cancer.1 

The  humanistic  view  of  metaphysics  Schiller  ex- 
presses in  the  preface  to  the  1910  edition  of  his 
earliest  work  "Riddles  of  the  Sphinx." 

1  Eugenics  Review,  April,  1910. 
[226] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

Practically  a  system  of  metaphysics,  with  what- 
ever pretensions  to  pure  thought  and  absolute 
rationality  it  may  start  is  always  in  the  end  one 
man's  personal  vision  about  the  universe,  and  the 
"metaphysical  craving"  often  so  strong  in  the 
young  is  nothing  but  the  desire  to  tell  the  universe 
what  one  thinks  of  it.  Of  course,  the  tale  may  be 
worth  telling  if  told  well. 

This  describes  the  "Riddles  of  the  Sphinx" 
exactly.  In  it  the  youthful  Schiller  tells  the  uni- 
verse what  he  thinks  of  it  and  it  is  told  well.  But 
his  thoughts  have  changed  in  the  twenty-five  years 
since  this  volume  was  published  so  that  even  in  its 
revised  form  it  does  not  so  well  express  his  views  as 
do  his  later  volumes,  "Humanism"  and  "Studies  in 
Humanism",  of  which  revised  editions  were  brought 
out  in  1912. 

The  doctrine  known  as  Absolute  Idealism  was, 
Schiller  explains,  imported  from  Germany,  "soon 
after  its  demise  in  its  native  country",  for  the  pur- 
pose of  counteracting  the  anti-religious  develop- 
ments of  science.  But  the  abstract  conception  of 
the  Absolute  is,  in  his  opinion,  of  no  value  to  religion 
or  anything  else.  The  pragmatic  demand  for  God 
is,  first,  as  "a  human  moral  principle  of  help  and 
justice",  and  second,  as  "an  aid  to  the  intellectual 
comprehension  of  the  universe",  but  the  meta- 

[227] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

physical  Absolute  satisfies  neither  of  these  cravings, 
for  it  is  too  impersonal  to  help  anybody  and  too 
general  to  explain  anything. 

In  his  chapter  on  "Absolutism  and  the  Dissocia- 
tion of  Personality"  1  he  generously  offers  his  aid  to 
the  idealistic  monists  who  have  difficulty  in  con- 
ceiving how  the  One  became  the  Many  and  why 
the  individualistic  minds  included  in  the  Universal 
Mind  should  be  so  antagonistic.  Schiller  suggests 
that  it  is  an  analogous  case  to  the  dissociation  of 
that  celebrated  Boston  lady  "Miss  Beauchamp" 
into  several  secondary  personalities.  But  he  admits 
that  it  is  "a  little  startling  at  first  to  think  of  the 
Absolute  as  morbidly  dissociated  or  even  as  down- 
right mad",  especially  since  in  the  case  of  the  Ab- 
solute there  is  no  outsider,  like  Doctor  Morton 
Prince,  to  put  the  parts  together  again. 

Many  years  before  he  had  said  2 

The  conception  of  a  Deity  absorbed  in  perfect, 
unchanging  and  eternal  bliss  is  a  blasphemy  upon 
the  Divine  energy  which  might  be  permitted  to  the 
heathen  ignorance  of  Aristotle,  but  which  should 
be  abhorred  by  all  who  have  learnt  the  lesson  of 
the  Crucifixion.  A  theology  which  denies  that  the 
imperfection  of  the  world  must  be  reflected  in  the 

1  In  "Studies  in  Humanism." 

1  "  Riddles  of  the  Sphinx,"  p.  431. 

[228] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 

sorrows  of  the  Deity  simply  shows  itself  blind  to 
the  deepest  and  truest  meaning  of  the  figure  of  Him 
that  was  "a  man  of  sorrows  and  acquainted  with 
grief"  and  deaf  to  the  gospel  of  Divine  sympathy 
with  the  world.  Thus  the  world-process  is  the 
process  of  the  redemption  alike  of  God,  of  the  world 
and  of  our  own  selves. 

The  conception  of  a  struggling  and  self-develop- 
ing God  which  Schiller  adduced  from  Christian 
principles  is  remarkably  like  that  to  which  Bergson 
was  led  by  other  lines  of  reasoning.1 

The  value  of  the  pragmatic  method  to  religion 
is  discussed  by  Schiller  in  his  article  on  "Faith, 
Reason  and  Religion",2  where  he  shows  that  even 
the  most  rigorous  scientific  reasoning  involves  the 
element  of  faith,  and  on  the  other  hand  that  faith 
is  devoid  of  value  unless  it  is  verified  in  the  only 
way  by  which  anything  can  be  verified,  that  is,  by 
works.  He  says : 

Christianity  is  an  essentially  human  and  thor- 
oughly pragmatic  religion,  hampered  throughout 
its  history  and  at  times  almost  strangled  by  an  alien 
theology,  based  upon  the  intellectualistic  specula- 
tions of  Greek  philosophers.  Fortunately  the  Greek 
metaphysic  embodied  (mainly)  in  the  "Athanasian" 

1  See  "Creative  Evolution"  and  Chapter  II  of  "Major  Prophets  of 
To-day  " ;  also  Wells  and  Shaw  in  this  volume. 

1  In  "Studies  in  Humanism"  and  Hibbert  Journal,  January,  1906. 
See  also  "Science  and  Religion"  in  "Riddles  of  the  Sphinx",  new  edition. 

[229] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

creed  is  too  obscure  to  have  ever  been  really  func- 
tional ;  its  chief  mischief  has  always  been  to  give 
theological  support  to  "philosophic"  criticisms, 
which  by  identifying  God  with  "the  One"  have 
aimed  at  eliminating  the  human  elements  from  the 
Christian  religion.  As  against  all  such  attempts, 
however,  we  must  hold  fast  to  the  principle  that  the 
truest  religion  is  that  which  issues  in  and  fosters 
the  best  life. 

The  pragmatic  criterion  of  truth,  that  all  truths 
must  work,  is  not  a  lax  one  as  its  opponents  assert 
but  the  most  stringent  that  can  be  applied.  It 
means  —  "You  shall  back  your  beliefs  with  your 
acts  and  shall  not  assert  the  truth  of  whatever  suits 
you  without  any  testing  at  all."  It  eliminates  as 
meaningless  all  theories  that  make  no  difference 
whether  they  are  believed  or  disbelieved.  It  de- 
mands constant  confirmation  of  all  beliefs  by  their 
consequences.  It  insists  upon  the  unity  of  theory 
and  practice,  of  faith  and  works.  This  point  was 
plainly  put  by  Schiller  in  his  address  before  the  Pan- 
Anglican  Church  Congress  of  1908  : 

For  any  theory  to  work,  it  must  be  believed  in, 
e.g.,  believed  to  be  true.  It  is  impossible,  e.g.,  to 
practice  prayer  merely  as  a  piece  of  spiritual  hy- 
giene, and  in  order  to  get  the  strengthening  which 
is  said  to  result  from  the  practice.  The  practice 
need  not,  of  course,  start  with  a  firm  belief  in  the 
reality  of  its  object.  But  unless  it  engenders  a 

[230] 


F.   C.   S.   SCHILLER 


real  belief,  it  will  become  inefficacious.  Hence,  to 
conceive  of  Pragmatism  as  ultimately  sanctioning 
an  "act-as-if"  attitude  of  religious  make-believe  is 
a  misapprehension ;  it  is  to  confound  it  with  the 
discredited  and  ineffectual  dualism  of  Kant's  an- 
tithesis of  practical  and  theoretic  "reason."  Lastly, 
it  should  be  noted  that  any  theory  which  works 
must  evoke  some  response  from  the  objective  nature 
of  things.  If  there  were  no  "God",  i.e.,  nothing 
that  could  afford  any  satisfaction  to  any  religious 
emotion,  the  whole  religious  attitude  would  be  futile. 
If  it  is  not,  it  must  contain  essential  truth,  though 
it  may  remain  to  be  determined  what  is  the  objective 
fact  corresponding  to  the  postulate. 


How  TO  READ  SCHILLER 

"Humanism"  (1903,  new  edition  1912)  and 
"Studies  in  Humanism"  (1907,  new  edition  1912) 
are  both  collections  of  papers  presenting  various 
phases  of  Schiller's  philosophy.  Either  one  may 
serve  as  an  introduction  to  the  author.  "Riddles 
of  the  Sphinx"  (1891),  though  also  revised  (1910), 
represents  an  earlier  mode  of  thought.  "Formal 
Logic"  (1912)  is  too  technical  for  any  but  well 
prepared  students.  All  Schiller's  works  are  pub- 
lished by  The  Macmillan  Company. 

The  reader  who  loves  a  fight  and  does  not  faint 
at  the  sight  of  inkshed  will  find  what  he  wants  in 
almost  any  volume  of  the  Oxford  Mind  or  the  Co- 
lumbia Journal  of  Philosophy,  Psychology  and  Scien- 
tific Methods.  Where  the  conflict  rages  most  fiercely 
there  Schiller  will  be  seen  in  the  midst  of  the  com- 

[231  1 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

batants,    thrusting    in    all    directions    at    the    weak 

points    in    their    armor.     To   enumerate    all    of   his 

controversial  and  fugitive  writings  would  be  im- 
possible here,  but  the  following  articles  at  least 

must  be  mentioned  : 

"Do  Men  Desire  Immortality?"  (Fortnightly,  vol. 
76,  p.  430). 

"The  Desire  for  a  Future  Life"  (Independent, 
September  15,  1904). 

"Psychical  Research"  (Fortnightly,  vol.  83,  p.  60). 

Presidential  Address  (Proceedings  Society  for  Psy- 
chical Research,  1914-1915). 

Miss  Beauchamp  (Journal  Philosophy,  Psychology 
and  Scientific  Methods,  vol.  4,  p.  20;  and  Mind, 
No.  70,  p.  183). 

"The  Philosophy  of  Friedrich  Nietzsche"  (Quarterly 
Review,  1913). 

"Choice"  and  "Infallibility"  (Hibbert  Journal, 
1909). 

"Plato"  (Quarterly  Review,  vol.  204,  p.  62). 

"Pluralism"  (Proceedings  of  Aristotelian  Society, 
1908-1909). 

"The  Rational  Conception  of  Truth"  (Proceedings 
Aristotelian  Society,  1906). 

"Oxford  of  the  Workingman"  (Fortnightly,  Febru- 
ary, 1913). 

"Cosmopolitan  Oxford"  (Fortnightly,  May,  1902). 

"War  Prophecies"  (Journal  Society  Psychical  Re- 
search, June,  1916). 

"Criticism  of  Perry's  Realism"  (Mind,  1914). 

Discussions  of  pragmatism  (Mind,  1913,  1915)- 

"New  Developments  of  Mr.  Bradley' s  Philosophy" 
(Mind,  1915). 

"Present  Phase  of  Idealistic  Philosophy"  (Mind, 
January  and  October,  1910). 

[232] 


F.   C.   S.    SCHILLER 

"Realism,  Pragmatism,  and  William  James"  (Mind, 

I9I5)- 

"The    Humanism    of    Protagoras"     (Mind,    April, 

1911). 

"  Logic  versus  Life"  (Independent,  vol.  73,  p.  375). 
"Aristotle's  Refutation  of  the  Aristotelian  Logic" 

(Mind,  vol.  23,  pp.  I,  395,  558). 
"The    Working   of   Truths    and    Their    Criterion" 

(Mind,  vol.  22,  No.  88). 
"Error"   (IV  Congresso  internazionale  di  filosofia, 

Bologna,  1911). 

"Relevance"  (Mind,  vol.  21,  No.  82). 
"The  Working  of  Truths"  (Mind,  vol.  21,  No.  84). 
"National  Self-Selection"   (Eugenics  Review,  April, 

1910). 
"Our  Critic  Criticized"  (Eugenics  Review,  January, 


. 

Criticism  of  Schiller  and  other  pragmatists  may 

be  found  in  the  controversies  referred  to,  but  I  may 

also  add  the  following  references  : 

"Vital  Lies"  by  Vernon  Lee  (John  Lane  Company, 


Pragmatism"  (Quarterly  Review,  April,  1909). 
"British  Exponents  of  Pragmatism"   by  Professor 

M'Gilvary  (Hibbert  Journal,  April,  1908). 
"Der  Pragmatismus  von  James   und   Schiller,"    by 

Doctor  Werner  Bloch  (1913). 


[233] 


CHAPTER  V 

JOHN  DEWEY 

TEACHER  OF  TEACHERS 

IF  some  historian  should  construct  an  intellectual 
weather  map  of  the  United  States  he  would  find 
that  in  the  eighties  the  little  arrows  that  show  which 
way  the  wind  blows  were  pointing  in  toward  Ann 
Arbor,  Michigan,  in  the  nineties  toward  Chicago, 
Illinois,  and  in  the  nineteen  hundreds  toward  New 
York  City,  indicating  that  at  these  points  there  was 
a  rising  current  of  thought.  And  if  he  went  so  far 
as  to  investigate  the  cause  of  these  local  upheavals 
of  the  academic  atmosphere  he  would  discover  that 
John  Dewey  had  moved  from  one  place  to  the  other. 
It  might  be  a  long  time  before  the  psychometeor- 
ologist  would  trace  these  thought  currents  spreading 
over  the  continent  back  to  their  origin,  a  secluded 
classroom  where  the  most  modest  man  imaginable 
was  seated  and  talking  in  a  low  voice  for  an  hour  or 
two  a  day.  John  Dewey  is  not  famous  like  W.  J. 

[234! 


JOHN   DEWEY 

Bryan  or  Charlie  Chaplin.  He  is  not  even  known 
by  name  to  most  of  the  millions  whose  thought  he 
is  guiding  and  whose  characters  he  is  forming.  This 
is  because  his  influence  has  been  indirect.  He  has 
inspired  individuals  and  instigated  reforms  in  edu- 
cational methods  which  have  reached  the  remotest 
schoolhouses  of  the  land.  The  first  of  the  Dewey 
cyclones  revolved  about  psychology,  the  second 
about  pedagogy,  and  the  third  about  philosophy. 

I  was  a  thousand  miles  away  from  the  first  storm 
center,  yet  I  distinctly  felt  the  vibrations.  That 
was  in  the  University  of  Kansas  when  the  psychology 
class  was  put  in  charge  of  a  young  man  named  Tem- 
plin  just  back  from  his  Wanderjahr  in  Germany. 
This  study  had  hitherto  belonged  ex  officio  to  the 
Chancellor  of  the  university  who  put  the  finishing 
touch  on  the  seniors'  brains  with  aid  of  McCosh. 
But  the  queer  looking  brown  book  stamped  "Psy- 
chology—  John  Dewey"  that  was  put  into  our 
hands  in  1887  relegated  the  Princeton  philosopher 
to  the  footnotes  and  instead  told  about  Helmholtz, 
Weber,  Wundt  and  a  lot  of  other  foreigners  who,  it 
seemed,  were  not  content  to  sit  down  quietly  and 
search  their  own  minds  —  surely  as  good  as  any- 
body's —  but  went  about  watching  the  behavior  of 
children,  animals,  and  crazy  folks  and  spent  their 

[235] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

time  in  a  laboratory  —  the  idea  !  —  measuring  the 
speed  of  thought  and  dissecting  brains.  This  young 
man  in  Michigan  made  bold  to  claim  psychology  as 
a  natural  science  instead  of  a  minor  branch  of  meta- 
physics, and  he  did  the  best  he  could  to  prove  it 
with  such  meager  materials  as  were  available  at 
the  time.  His  "Psychology"  appeared,  as  should 
be  remembered,  three  years  before  the  epoch-making 
work  of  James  and  before  any  permanent  psycho- 
logical laboratory  had  been  opened  in  the  United 
States.  In  taking  down  again  my  battered  brown 
copy  of  Dewey's  "Psychology"  I  am  surprised  to 
find  how  trite  and  old-fashioned  some  of  it  sounds. 
Although  Dewey  thought  he  had  thrown  overboard 
all  metaphysics  it  is  evident  that  he  was  then  carry- 
ing quite  a  cargo  of  it  unconsciously. 

But  the  commotion  started  by  Dewey's  "Psy- 
chology" was  a  tempest  in  an  inkpot  compared  with 
the  cyclone  that  swept  over  the  country  when  he 
began  to  put  his  theories  into  practice  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago  in  1894.  I  heard  echoes  of  it  as 
far  west  as  Wyoming.  The  teachers  who  went  to 
the  summer  session  of  the  University  of  Chicago 
came  back  shocked,  fascinated,  inspired,  or  appalled, 
according  to  their  temperaments.  The  very  idea 
of  an  "experimental  school"  was  disconcerting,  sug- 

[236] 


JOHN   DEWEY 

gesting  that  the  poor  children  were  being  subjected 
to  some  sort  of  vivisection  or  —  what  was  worse  — 
implying  that  the  established  educational  methods 
were  all  wrong.  "He  lets  the  children  do  whatever 
they  want  to  do,"  whispered  the  teachers  to  their 
stay-at-home  colleagues,  who,  like  themselves,  were 
spending  their  time  in  keeping  the  children  from 
doing  what  they  wanted  to  do  and  in  making  them 
do  what  they  did  not  want  to  do.  "He  lets  the 
children  talk  and  run  around  and  help  one  another 
with  their  lessons!"  and  all  the  teachers  looked  at 
each  other  with  a  wild  surmise  silent  on  the  school- 
room platform.  Could  it  be  that  there  was  a  better 
way,  that  this  task  on  which  they  were  wearing  out 
their  nerves,  trying  to  reduce  to  rigidity  for  five 
hours  a  roomful  of  wriggling  children,  was  no  less 
harmful  to  the  children  than  to  themselves  ?  "  I'd 
like  to  see  John  Dewey  try  to  manage  my  sixty," 
remarks  the  presiding  teacher  as  she  suppresses  a 
little  girl  on  the  front  seat  with  a  smile  and  a  big  boy 
on  the  back  seat  with  a  tap  of  her  pencil. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  children  neither  studied 
nor  did  what  they  pleased,  but  the  idea  was  that 
if  children  had  a  sufficient  variety  of  activities  pro- 
vided they  would  like  what  they  did  and  their  ac- 
tivities could  be  so  arranged  as  to  result  in  getting 

[237! 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

knowledge  and  in  forming  good  habits  of  thought. 
The  common  assumption  that  the  main  idea  was 
to  have  the  children  do  and  study  what  they  liked 
was  a  complete  missing  of  the  intellectual  idea  or 
philosophy  of  the  school,  which  was  an  attempt  to 
work  out  the  theory  that  knowledge,  with  respect 
to  both  sense  observation  and  general  principles,  is 
an  offshoot  of  activities,  and  that  the  practical 
problems  arising  in  connection  with  consecutive 
occupations  afford  the  means  for  a  development 
of  interest  in  scientific  problems  for  their  own  sake. 
The  social  grouping  of  children,  and  the  attempt 
to  get  cooperative  group  work,  was  always  just  as 
important  a  phase  as  individual  freedom  —  not  only 
on  moral  grounds,  but  because  of  the  theoretical 
conception  that  human  intelligence  developed  under 
social  conditions  and  for  social  purposes  —  in  other 
words,  "mind"  has  developed  not  only  with  respect 
to  activity  having  purpose,  but  also  social  activity. 
These  same  notions  of  the  central  place  of  intelli- 
gence in  action  and  the  social  nature  of  intelligence 
are  fundamental  in  Dewey's  "  Ethics." 

The  real  distinguishing  characteristic  of  schools 
of  the  Dewey  type  is  not  absence  of  discipline  but 
a  new  ideal  of  discipline.  This  is  most  clearly 
stated  in  one  of  his  more  recent  works : 

[238] 


JOHN   DEWEY 

Discipline  of  mind  is  in  truth  a  result  rather  than 
a  cause.  Any  mind  is  disciplined  in  a  subject  in 
which  independent  intellectual  initiative  and  con- 
trol have  been  achieved.  Discipline  represents 
original  native  endowment  turned  through  gradual 
exercise  into  effective  power.  .  .  .  Discipline  is 
positive  and  constructive.  Discipline,  however,  is 
frequently  regarded  as  something  negative  —  as  a 
painfully  disagreeable  forcing  of  mind  away  from 
channels  congenial  to  it  into  channels  of  constraint, 
a  process  grievous  at  the  time,  but  necessary  as 
preparation  for  a  more  or  less  remote  future.  Dis- 
cipline is  then  generally  identified  with  drill ;  and 
drill  is  conceived  after  the  mechanical  analogy  of 
driving,  by  unremitting  blows,  a  foreign  substance 
into  a  resistant  material;  or  is  imaged  after  the 
analogy  of  the  mechanical  routine  by  which  raw 
recruits  are  trained  to  a  soldierly  bearing  and  habits 
that  are  naturally  wholly  foreign  to  their  possessors. 
Training  of  this  latter  sort,  whether  it  be  called 
discipline  or  not,  is  not  mental  discipline.  Its  aim 
and  result  are  not  habits  of  thinking  but  uniform 
external  habits  of  action.  By  failing  to  ask  what  he 
means  by  discipline,  many  a  teacher  is  misled  into 
supposing  that  he  is  developing  mental  force  and 
efficiency  by  methods  which  in  fact  restrict  and 
deaden  intellectual  activity,  and  which  tend  to 
create  mechanical  routine,  or  mental  passivity  and 
servility.  -  "How  We  Think",  p.  63. 

But  even  more  revolutionary  than  Dewey's  rejec- 
tion of  the  strict  discipline  then  prevailing  in  the 
schools  was  his  introduction  of  industrial  training 
as  an  integral  part  of  education,  not  merely  for  the 

[239] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

purpose  of  giving  the  pupils  greater  manual  skill, 
still  less  with  the  object  of  improving  their  chances 
of  getting  a  job  or  of  making  them  more  efficient 
for  the  benefit  of  the  employer,  but  chiefly  because 
it  is  only  through  participation  in  industry  that  one 
can  get  an  understanding  of  the  meaning  of  science 
and  the  constitution  of  the  social  organism.  In  the 
old  days  when  most  industries  were  carried  on  in  the 
household  or  the  neighborhood  children  learned  them 
by  observation  and  participation.  ^School  was  then  a 
place  where  this  very  effective  form  of  home  educa- 
tion could  be  supplemented  by  "book  learning." 

But  Dewey  faced  frankly  the  fact  that  the  house- 
hold arts  and  handicrafts  had  passed  away  for  keeps, 
and  he  refused  to  join  in  the  pretense  that  they  could 
be  profitably  "revived"  by  the  various  esthetic 
and  socialist  movements  of  the  William  Morris  and 
Ruskin  type.  He  recognized  that  the  machine  and 
the  factory  had  come  to  stay,  and  if  the  worker  is 
not  to  become  a  factory  machine  himself  he  must 
receive  in  school  such  a  broad  and  diversified  train- 
ing as  will  make  him  realize  the  significance  of  the 
work  he  does.  Or  as  Dewey  said  in  "School  and 
Society"  in  1899: 

We  sometimes  hear  the  introduction  of  manual 
training,  art  and  science  into  the  elementary,  and 

[240] 


JOHN   DEWEY 

even  into  the  secondary,  schools  deprecated  on  the 
ground  that  they  tend  toward  the  production  of 
specialists  —  that  they  detract  from  our  present 
system  of  generous,  liberal  culture.  The  point  to 
this  objection  would  be  ludicrous  if  it  were  not  often 
so  effective  as  to  make  it  tragic.  It  is  our  present 
education  which  is  highly  specialized,  one-sided  and 
narrow.  It  is  an  education  dominated  almost  en- 
tirely by  the  medieval  conception  of  learning.  It 
is  something  which  appeals  for  the  most  part  simply 
to  the  intellectual  aspect  of  our  natures,  our  desire 
to  learn,  to  accumulate  information,  and  to  get 
control  of  the  symbols  of  learning;  not  to  our  im- 
pulses and  tendencies  to  make,  to  do,  to  create,  to 
produce,  whether  in  the  form  of  utility  or  art. 

Mere  "manual  training",  then  all  the  rage,  has 
failed,  as  Dewey  said  it  would,  because  of  its  fictitious 
and  adventitious  character.  His  method  was  as 
different  from  the  ordinary  kind  of  "manual  train- 
ing" as  hay-making  is  from  dumb-bell  exercise. 

We  must  conceive  of  work  in  wood  and  metal,  of 
weaving,  sewing  and  cooking,  as  methods  of  living 
and  learning,  not  as  distinct  studies.  We  must 
conceive  of  them  in  their  social  significance,  as  types 
of  processes  by  which  society  keeps  itself  going,  as 
agencies  for  bringing  home  to  the  child  some  of  the 
primal  necessities  of  community  life,  and  as  ways 
in  which  these  needs  have  been  met  by  the  growing 
insight  and  ingenuity  of  man  ;  in  short  as  instrumen- 
talities through  which  the  school  itself  shall  be  made 
a  genuine  form  of  active  community  life,  instead  of 
a  place  set  apart  in  which  to  learn  lessons. 

[241] 


SIX  MAJOR   PROPHETS 

So  Dewey  set  the  children  to  solving  the  problems 
of  primitive  man  and  retracing  for  themselves  the 
steps  in  the  evolution  of  industrial  processes.  They 
picked  the  cotton  from  the  boll,  carded,  spun  it  into 
thread  and  wove  it  into  cloth  on  machines  of  their 
own  making  and  for  the  most  part  of  their  own  de- 
vising. This  gave  opportunity  for  personal  experi- 
menting and  taught  them  history  by  repeating 
history,  not  repeating  a  verbal  version  of  history. 
And  the  history  they  thus  learnt  was  the  history  of 
the  human  race,  not  the  history  of  some  chosen 
people. 

This  recapitulation  theory,  like  all  others,  has 
since  been  carried  to  an  extreme.  Acting  on  the 
idea  that  children  normally  pass  through  the  same 
stages  as  European  civilization  some  teachers  seem 
to  think  it  necessary  to  keep  them  to  the  chrono- 
logical curriculum.  So  they  cultivate  a  pseudo- 
savagery  for  a  year  or  two,  then  make  them  pagans 
and  later  teach  the  ideals  of  the  age  of  chivalry  which 
are  hardly  less  repugnant  to  the  modern  mind.  So 
careful  are  they  to  avoid  anachronism  that  if  a  boy 
should  by  any  accident  behave  like  a  Christian  be- 
fore he  reached  the  grade  corresponding  to  A.D.  28 
he  would  be  likely  to  get  a  bad  mark  for  it.  So,  too, 
I  have  known  teachers  of  mathematics  who  would  not 

[242] 


JOHN   DEWEY 

allow  their  pupils  to  take  a  short  cut  to  the  answer 
by  way  of  algebra  unless  it  was  in  the  algebra  class 
and  teachers  of  chemistry  who  would  not  permit 
the  word  "atom"  to  be  mentioned  in  classroom 
until  the  term  was  half  through.  But  such  extrava- 
gances find  no  countenance  in  Dewey's  writings  or 
the  examples  he  cites. 

In  the  laboratory  school  of  the  University  of 
Chicago  Professor  and  Mrs.  Dewey  had  for  several 
years  a  free  hand  in  developing  and  trying  out  their 
theories.  Their  aim  was  to  utilize  instead  of  to 
suppress  the  fourfold  impulses  of  childhood ;  the 
interest  in  conversation,  the  interest  in  inquiry,  the 
interest  in  construction  and  the  interest  in  artistic 
expression.  The  volume  in  which  Professor  Dewey 
explained  what  he  was  trying  to  do  and  why,  "  School 
and  Society",  was  first  published  in  1899  and  has 
been  reprinted  almost  every  year  up  to  the  present.1 
It  might  well  have  borne  the  same  title  as  Benjamin 
Tucker's  volume  on  anarchism:  "Instead  of  a 
Book,  by  a  Man  Too  Busy  to  Write  One."  It  con- 
sists of  the  stenographic  reports  of  three  informal 
talks  by  Professor  Dewey  to  the  parents  of  his 
pupils  and  the  friends  of  his  school,  supplemented 

1  The  University  of  Chicago  Press  published  a  second  edition  of 
"School  and  Society",  revised  and  enlarged,  in  1915. 

[243] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

by  some  fugitive  papers.  Yet  it  has  an  influence 
comparable  to  no  other  modern  book  of  its  size 
unless  perhaps  Herbert  Spencer's  tract  on  "Edu- 
cation." 

How  far  the  seed  was  sown  is  shown  by  "Schools 
of  To-morrow",1  which  tells  of  a  dozen  places  where 
the  ideas  that  were  so  novel  and  startling  in  the 
nineties  are  in  practical  operation.  But  it  is  char- 
acteristic of  Dewey's  self-effacement  that  he  makes 
no  claim  for  priority,  and  there  is  no  hint  anywhere 
in  the  volume  that  many  of  the  methods  described 
were  first  devised  and  tried  out  in  the  Dewey  school 
at  Chicago  nearly  twenty  years  ago.  He  gives  the 
credit  for  the  theory  to  Rousseau  and  the  credit  for 
the  practice  to  Mr.  Wirt  of  Gary,  Mrs.  Johnson  of 
Fairhope,  Mr.  Valentine  of  Indianapolis,  Professor 
Merriam  of  Missouri,  and  others. 

Mr.  Wirt  who  organized  the  school  system  of  the 
steel  city  of  Gary,  Indiana,  and  who  is  now  em- 
ployed in  remodeling  some  of  the  schools  of  New 
York  City,  owes  his  inspiration  and  ideas,  as  I  have 
heard  him  say,  very  largely  to  Dewey.2  The  Gary 
system  differs  from  the  trade  schools  in  that  the 

1  "Schools  of  To-morrow",  by  John  Dewey  and  Evelyn  Dewey 
(Dutton),  1915. 

2  Doctor  Georg  Kerschensteiner  who  founded  the   famous    "work- 
shop schools"  of  Munich  also  acknowledges  his  indebtedness  to  Dewey. 

[244] 


JOHN   DEWEY 

industries  are  used  for  their  educative  value.  The 
pupils  are  shifted  around  from  one  shop  to  another 
three  times  a  year.  Their  tasks  are  artificial,  sym- 
bolic or  imitative,  but  from  the  fifth  grade  up  real 
constructive  work,  for  the  boys  making  school 
furniture,  iron  castings,  laying  concrete,  and  print- 
ing; and  for  the  girls,  sewing,  cooking,  marketing, 
millinery,  and  laundry,  and  for  both,  gardening, 
pottery,  designing,  bookbinding  and  bookkeeping. 
Arithmetic,  writing,  history,  and  geography  come  in 
necessarily  and  naturally  in  connection  with  their 
work.  Under  this  regime  the  pupils  make  better 
progress  in  the  traditional  subjects  than  those  who 
devote  their  whole  time  to  books.  That  it  does  not 
divert  them  from  higher  education  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  one  third  of  all  the  pupils  who  have  left 
the  Gary  schools  in  the  eight  years  of  their  existence 
are  now  in  the  state  university,  an  engineering  school, 
or  a  business  college,  a  remarkable  record  for  a 
population  mostly  composed  of  foreign-born  steel 
mill  laborers.  All  the  schoolrooms  are  in  use  for 
something  all  day  long,  so  the  "peak  load"  is  avoided 
and  a  great  economy  effected.  The  grounds  and 
buildings  also  serve  as  community  centers  and  the 
last  trace  of  the  ancient  feud  between  "town  and 
gown"  has  been  wiped  out. 

[HSl 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

The  chief  advantage  which  these  "schools  of  to- 
morrow" have  over  those  of  the  past  is,  in  Dewey's 
opinion,  that  they  come  a  step  nearer  toward  giving 
the  type  of  training  necessary  to  prepare  citizens 
for  democracy.  In  this  new  book,  then,  he  is  work- 
ing toward  the  ideal  he  promulgated  at  the  beginning 
of  his  career  when  he  entered  the  faculty  of  the 
University  of  Michigan  as  the  youngest  man  ever 
appointed  to  a  professorship  in  that  institution.  He 
sounded  the  note  of  his  philosophy  thirty  years  ago 
in  a  paper  on  "The  Ethics  of  Democracy",1  and  he 
has  never  faltered  in  his  allegiance  to  the  high  ideal 
he  there  set  forth,  although  he  has  broken  away 
from  the  Hegelian  mode  of  thought  he  then  used. 
The  paper  was  written  to  confute  Sir  Henry  Maine 
who,  in  his  "Popular  Government",  argued  that 
democracy  was  an  historical  accident  and  the  most 
fragile,  insecure,  and  unprogressive  form  of  govern- 
ment. Dewey  objects  to  his  mechanical  and  mathe- 
matical conception  of  democratic  government  and 
sets  forth  a  very  different  conception  as  the  following 
quotations  will  show : 

The  majority  have  a  right  to  "rule"  because  their 
majority  is  not  the  mere  sign  of  a  surplus  in  numbers, 

1  No.  I  of  Series  2  of  Philosophical  Papers  of  the  University  of 
Michigan,  1887. 

[246] 


JOHN  DEWEY 

but  is  the  manifestation  of  the  purpose  of  the  social 
organism. 

Government  is  to  the  state  what  language  is  to 
the  thought :  it  not  only  communicates  the  purposes 
of  the  state,  but  in  so  doing  gives  them  for  the  first 
time  articulation  and  generality. 

A  vote  is  not  the  impersonal  counting  of  one;  it 
is  a  manifestation  of  some  tendency  of  the  social 
organism  through  a  member  of  that  organism. 

The  democratic  formula  that  government  derives 
its  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed  .  .  . 
means  that  in  democracy  the  governors  and  the 
governed  are  not  of  two  classes,  but  two  aspects  of 
the  same  fact  —  the  fact  of  the  possession  by  society 
of  a  unified  and  articulate  will. 

The  aristocratic  idea  implies  that  the  mass  of  men 
are  to  be  inserted  by  wisdom,  or,  if  necessary,  thrust 
by  force,  into  their  proper  positions  in  the  social 
organism.  .  .  . 

Democracy  means  that  personality  is  the  first  and 
final  reality.  ...  It  holds  that  the  spirit  of  per- 
sonality indwells  in  every  individual,  and  that  the 
choice  to  develop  it  must  proceed  from  that  indi- 
vidual. From  this  central  position  of  democracy 
result  the  other  notes  of  democracy,  liberty, 
equality,  fraternity  —  words  which  are  not  mere 
words  to  catch  a  mob,  but  symbols  of  the  high- 
est ethical  idea  which  humanity  has  yet  reached 
—  the  idea  that  personality  is  the  one  thing  of 
permanent  and  abiding  worth,  and  that  in  every 
human  individual  there  lies  personality.  ...  It 
means  that  in  every  individual  there  lives  an  in- 
finite and  universal  possibility :  that  of  being  a 
king  or  priest.  Aristocracy  is  blasphemy  against 
personality. 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

Even  in  those  days  when  socialism  had  hardly 
begun  to  be  whispered,  at  least  in  academic  circles, 
Dewey  was  not  afraid  to  say  that:  "Democracy 
is  not  in  reality  what  it  is  in  name  until  it  is  indus- 
trial as  well  as  civil  and  political.  ...  A  democracy 
of  wealth  is  a  necessity."  Twenty-five  years  later 
I  saw  Professor  Dewey  giving  a  public  demonstration 
of  his  faith  in  democracy  when  I  found  him  march- 
ing with  a  small  body  of  men  at  the  tail  end  of  a 
suffrage  procession  while  the  crowds  that  lined  Fifth 
Avenue  jeered  and  hissed  at  us.  Who  would  then 
have  thought  that  five  years  later  all  parties  would 
be  committed  to  equal  suffrage  and  four  presidential 
candidates  would  be  bidding  against  one  another  for 
the  privilege  of  giving  the  women  the  vote ! 

Education  for  democracy  is  the  burden  of  Dewey's 
message  to  the  world,  and  I  must  give  one  more 
quotation  on  this  point : 

Democracy,  the  crucial  expression  of  modern  life, 
is  not  so  much  an  addition  to  the  scientific  and  in- 
dustrial tendencies  as  it  is  the  perception  of  their 
social  or  spiritual  meaning.  Democracy  is  an 
absurdity  where  faith  in  the  individual  as  individual 
is  impossible ;  and  this  faith  is  impossible  where 
intelligence  is  regarded  as  a  cosmic  power,  not  an 
adjustment  and  application  of  individual  tendencies. 
.  .  .  Democracy  is  estimable  only  through  the 
changed  conception  of  intelligence  that  forms  modern 

[248] 


JOHN   DEWEY 

science,  and  of  want,  that  forms  modern  industry. 
It  is  essentially  a  changed  psychology.  The  con- 
ventional type  of  education  which  trains  children 
in  docility  and  obedience,  to  the  careful  performance 
of  imposed  tasks  because  they  are  imposed,  regard- 
less of  where  they  lead,  is  suited  to  an  autocratic 
society.  These  are  the  traits  needed  in  a  state 
where  there  is  one  head  to  plan  and  care  for  the 
lives  and  institutions  of  the  people.  But  in  a  de- 
mocracy they  interfere  with  the  successful  conduct 
of  society  and  government.  ...  If  we  train  our 
children  to  take  orders,  to  do  things  simply  because 
they  are  told  to,  and  fail  to  give  them  confidence 
to  act  and  think  for  themselves,  we  are  putting  an 
almost  insurmountable  obstacle  in  the  way  of  over- 
coming the  present  defects  of  our  system  and  of 
establishing  the  truth  of  democratic  ideals. 

Children  in  school  must  be  allowed  freedom  so  that 
they  will  know  what  its  use  means  when  they  become 
the  controlling  body,  and  they  must  be  allowed  to 
develop  active  qualities  of  initiative,  independence, 
and  resourcefulness,  before  the  abuses  and  failures 
will  disappear.  —  "School  and  Society",  p.  304. 

The  old  theory  of  education  has  been  most  pun- 
gently  put  by  "Mr.  Dooley",  the  saloon-keeper  of 
Archey  Road,  in  one  of  his  monologues  with  Mr. 
Hennessy :  "  It  don't  matter  much  what  you  study 
—  so  long  as  you  don't  like  it."  Professor  Dewey 
takes  almost  the  opposite  ground  when  he  says :  * 
"Interest  ought  to  be  the  basis  for  selection  because 

1  "Schools  of  To-morrow",  p.  301. 
[249] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

children  are  interested  in  the  things  they  need  to 
learn." 

This,  as  he  shows,  does  not  mean  that  in  the  new 
schools  things  are  "made  easy";  on  the  contrary 
the  pupils  work  harder  because  things  are  made 
interesting. 

The  range  of  the  material  is  not  in  any  way 
limited  by  making  interest  a  standard  of  selection. 
Work  that  appeals  to  pupils  as  worth  while,  that 
holds  out  the  promise  of  resulting  in  something  to 
their  own  interests,  involves  just  as  much  persistence 
and  concentration  as  the  work  that  is  given  by  the 
sternest  advocate  of  disciplinary  drill.  The  latter 
requires  the  pupil  to  strive  for  ends  which  he  cannot 
see,  so  that  he  has  to  be  kept  at  the  task  by  means 
of  offering  artificial  ends,  marks,  and  promotions, 
and  by  isolating  him  in  an  atmosphere  where  his 
mind  and  senses  are  not  being  constantly  besieged 
by  the  call  of  life  which  appeals  so  strongly  to  him. 
But  the  pupil  presented  with  a  problem,  the  solution 
of  which  will  give  him  an  immediate  sense  of  accom- 
plishment and  satisfied  curiosity,  will  bend  all  his 
powers  to  the  work :  the  end  itself  will  furnish  the 
stimulus  necessary  to  carry  him  through  the  drudg- 
ery. .  .  .  Since  the  children  are  no  longer  working 
for  rewards,  the  temptation  to  cheat  is  reduced  to  a 
minimum.  There  is  no  motive  for  doing  dishonest 
acts,  since  the  result  shows  whether  the  child  has 
done  the  work,  the  only  end  recognized.  —  "  School 
and  Society." 

We  have  then  two  fundamentally  different  theories 
of  training,  the  Dooley  versus  the  Dewey  system. 

[250] 


DEWEY 

They  are  now  on  trial  in  some  degree  all  the  way  up 
from  the  beginning  of  the  primary  to  the  end  of  the 
college.1  One  is  authoritarian;  the  other  liber- 
tarian. One  cultivates  obedience;  the  other  initia- 
tive. One  strives  for  uniformity ;  the  other  diversity. 
In  one  the  impelling  motive  is  duty ;  in  the  other 
desire.  In  one  the  attitude  of  the  student  is  re- 
ceptivity; in  the  other  activity.  In  one  there  is 
compulsory  coordination ;  in  the  other  voluntary 
cooperation. 

Obviously  neither  could  be  carried  to  an  exclusive 
extreme,  and  in  practice  we  find  each  more  or  less 
unconsciously  borrowing  methods  from  the  others. 
Doubtless  the  optima  for  different  temperaments, 
ages,  and  studies  will  be  found  at  different  points 
along  the  line  connecting  the  two  extremes.  How 
far  one  may  safely  go  in  either  direction  is  to  be  deter- 
mined by  the  pragmatic  test  of  experiment.  But 
at  present  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  tide  of  reform  is 
running  in  the  direction  Dewey  pointed  out  a  quarter 
of  a  century  before,  though  recently  a  strong  counter- 
current  of  militarism  has  set  in.  That  Dewey  is 
a  true  prophet  is  proved  by  the  extent  to  which  his 

'See  the  admirable  article  in  Atlantic  Monthly  of  November,  1908,  by 
President  Pritchett  of  the  Carnegie  Foundation,  contrasting  Harvard 
and  West  Point,  "The  College  of  Freedom  and  the  College  of  Dis- 
cipline." 

[25I] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

ideas  are  being  carried  out  in  these  "schools  of  to- 
morrow" that  are  already  in  existence  to-day. 

The  third  period  in  Dewey's  life  began  with  his 
appointment  to  the  chair  of  philosophy  at  Columbia 
University  in  1905.  This  relieved  him  of  the  burden 
of  responsibility  for  the  conduct  of  the  laboratory 
school  at  Chicago  and  enabled  him  to  concentrate 
his  thought  upon  the  fundamental  problems  of 
knowledge.  It  was  then  perceived  that  he  belonged 
on  the  left  or  radical  wing  of  that  movement  to  which 
James  applied  Peirce's  name  of  "pragmatism." 
But  Dewey  is  reluctant  to  call  himself  a  pragmatist, 
partly  because  of  his  constitutional  dislike  to  wear- 
ing a  tag  of  any  kind,  partly,  I  surmise,  because  he 
has  an  aversion  to  the  spiritualistic  tendencies  of 
the  two  men  who  are  usually  classed  with  him  as 
the  leaders  of  the  pragmatic  movement  —  James 
of  Harvard  and  Schiller  of  Oxford. 

Dewey's  doctrine  of  cognition,  the  theory  of  in- 
strumentalism,  is  now  to  be  found  in  two  recent 
volumes,  one  technical  and  the  other  popular.  The 
ordinary  skimming  reader  will  find  the  "Essays  in 
Experimental  Logic"  rather  hard  sledding,  so  he 
will  be  relieved  to  find  that  it  has  been  translated  by 
the  author  into  ordinary  English  in  the  little  volume 
entitled  "How  We  Think."  This  is  intended  pri- 

[252] 


JOHN  DEWEY 

marily  for  teachers  whose  business  is  supposed  to 
be  that  of  teaching  their  youngsters  how  to  think, 
though  in  reality  most  of  their  time  has  to  be  taken 
up  with  the  imparting  of  information. 

The  "Ethics"  of  John  Dewey  and  James  H. 
Tufts  (1908)  is  not  only  a  practical  textbook  ad- 
mirably clear  in  expounding  the  conflicting  theories 
and  eminently  fair  in  criticizing  them,  but  it  would 
be  useful  to  any  reader  for  broadening  the  mind  and 
pointing  the  proper  way  of  approach  to  modern 
problems.  Professor  Tawney  of  the  University  of 
Cincinnati  in  reviewing  it  for  the  American  Journal 
of  Sociology  says:  "Probably  no  more  convincing 
effort  to  construct  a  system  of  moral  philosophy 
by  a  strictly  scientific  method  has  ever  been  carried 
out." 

Moral  philosophers  are  generally  disposed  to  keep 
their  carefully  constructed  systems  of  ethics  under 
a  glass  bell  jar  rather  than  risk  the  hard  knocks 
they  must  receive  if  taken  into  the  street  and  mar- 
ketplace. But  Dewey  as  a  professed  experimentalist 
could  not  consistently  adopt  this  cautious  method. 
His  is  no  cloistered  morality  but  a  doctrine  reduced 
from  practical  life  and  referable  to  the  same  author- 
ity for  the  validification  of  its  influences.  An 
interesting  instance  of  the  practical  application  of 

[253] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

his  principles  is  found  in  his  essay  on  "Force  and 
Coercion."  l  Here  he  discusses  chiefly  the  ques- 
tion of  the  allowability  of  the  use  of  force  by  a 
government  as  in  war  or  by  a  class  as  in  a  strike  and 
repudiates  the  Tolstoyan  view  that  all  use  of  force 
is  wrong.  On  such  a  delicate  question  it  would  be 
improper  for  me  to  paraphrase  his  argument,  so  I 
quote  instead  his  own  summary  of  his  conclusions : 

First,  since  the  attainment  of  ends  requires  the 
use  of  means,  law  is  essentially  a  formulation  of 
the  use  of  force.  Secondly,  the  only  question 
which  can  be  raised  about  the  justification  of  force 
is  that  of  comparative  efficiency  and  economy  in 
its  use.  Thirdly,  what  is  justly  objected  to  as 
violence  or  undue  coercion  is  a  reliance  upon  waste- 
ful and  destructive  means  of  accomplishing  results. 
Fourthly,  there  is  always  a  possibility  that  what 
passes  as  a  legitimate  use  of  force  may  be  so  wasteful 
as  to  be  really  a  use  of  violence ;  and  per  contra  that 
measures  condemned  as  recourse  to  mere  violence 
may,  under  the  given  circumstances,  represent  an 
intelligent  utilization  of  energy.  In  no  case,  can 
antecedents  or  a  priori  principles  be  appealed  to 
as  more  than  presumptive :  The  point  at  issue  is 
concrete  utilization  of  means  for  ends. 

In  this  essay  Dewey  inclines  to  the  view  that 
"all  political  questions  are  simply  questions  of  the 
extension  and  restriction  of  exercise  of  power  on 

1  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  vol.  26,  p.  359-367. 
[254] 


JOHN  DEWEY 

the  part  of  specific  groups  in  the  community",  and 
says  further  that:  "With  a  few  notable  exceptions, 
the  doctrine  that  the  state  rests  upon  or  is  common 
will  seems  to  turn  out  but  a  piece  of  phraseology  to 
justify  the  uses  actually  made  of  force.  Practices 
of  coercion  and  constraint  which  would  become  in- 
tolerable if  frankly  labelled  Force  seem  to  become 
laudable  when  baptized  with  the  name  of  Will, 
although  they  otherwise  remain  the  same." 

I  trust  that  Dewey  is  one  of  "the  few  notable 
exceptions",  for  the  quotations  from  his  paper  on 
the  "Ethics  of  Democracy"  which  I  have  given 
on  a  previous  page  show  that  Dewey  in  his  earlier 
years  went  as  far  as  Fichte  in  his  later  years  toward 
identifying  government  —  and  a  bare  majority  at 
that  —  with  the  common  will  of  the  social  organism. 
Such  a  Germanic  doctrine  of  the  power  of  the  State 
could  be  used  to  justify  worse  things  than  the  Ger- 
man Government  has  ever  done,  and  it  is  perhaps 
a  realization  of  this  that  has  led  Dewey  latterly  to 
look  with  more  favor  upon  the  use  of  force  by  the 
minority. 

The  proper  use  of  force  is,  in  Dewey's  opinion, 
"the  acute  question  of  social  philosophy  in  the 
world  to-day",  and  "a  generation  which  has  beheld 
the  most  stupendous  manifestation  of  force  in  all 

[»55l 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

history  is  not  going  to  be  content  unless  it  has 
found  some  answer  to  the  question."  In  an  article 
on  "Force,  Violence  and  Law"1  he  discusses  the 
possibilities  of  the  peace  movement  in  the  following 
fashion : 

At  various  times  of  my  life  I  have,  with  other 
wearied  souls,  assisted  at  discussions  between  those 
who  were  Tolstoyans  and  —  well,  those  who  weren't. 
In  reply  to  the  agitated  protests  of  the  former  against 
war  and  the  police  and  penal  measures,  I  have 
listened  to  the  time-honored  queries  about  what  you 
should  do  when  the  criminal  attacked  your  friend 
or  child.  I  have  rarely  heard  it  stated  that  since 
one  cannot  even  walk  the  street  without  using  force, 
the  only  question  which  persons  can  discuss  with 
one  another  concerns  the  most  effective  use  of  force 
in  gaining  ends  in  specific  situations.  If  one's  end 
is  the  saving  of  one's  soul  immaculate,  or  maintain- 
ing a  certain  emotion  unimpaired,  doubtless  force 
should  be  used  to  inhibit  natural  muscular  reactions. 
If  the  end  is  something  else,  a  hearty  fisticuff  may  be 
the  means  of  realizing  it.  What  is  intolerable  is 
that  men  should  condemn  or  eulogize  force  at  large, 
irrespective  of  its  use  as  a  means  of  getting  results. 
To  be  interested  in  ends  and  to  have  contempt  for 
the  means  which  alone  secure  them  is  the  last  stage 
of  intellectual  demoralization. 

It  is  hostility  to  force  as  force,  to  force  intrin- 
sically, which  has  rendered  the  peace  movement  so 
largely  an  anti-movement,  with  all  the  weaknesses 
which  appertain  to  everything  that  is  primarily 
anti-anything.  Unable  to  conceive  the  task  of 

1  The  New  Republic,  January  22,  1916. 
[256] 


JOHN   DEWEY 

organizing  the  existing  forces  so  they  may  achieve 
their  greatest  efficiency,  pacifists  have  had  little 
recourse  save  to  decry  evil  emotions  and  evil-minded 
men  as  the  causes  of  war.  .  .  .  And  no  league  to 
enforce  peace  will  fare  prosperously  save  as  it  is 
the  natural  accompaniment  of  a  constructive  ad- 
justment of  the  concrete  interests  which  are  already 
at  work.  .  .  .  The  passage  of  force  under  law 
occurs  only  when  all  the  cards  are  on  the  table, 
when  the  objective  facts  which  bring  conflicts  in 
their  train  are  acknowledged,  and  when  intelligence 
is  used  to  devise  mechanisms  which  will  afford  to 
the  forces  at  work  all  the  satisfaction  that  conditions 
permit. 

Dewey's  primary  purpose  has  always  been  the 
development  of  a  type  of  ethical  thinking  and  a 
method  of  school  training  suited  to  the  democratic 
and  industrial  society  of  modern  America.  Speak- 
ing of  the  mental  revolution  that  has  been  effected 
by  the  advance  of  science  he  says  : 

Whether  the  consequent  revolution  in  moral 
philosophy  be  termed  pragmatism  or  be  given  the 
happier  title  of  the  applied  and  experimental  habit 
of  mind  is  of  little  account.  What  is  of  moment  is 
that  intelligence  has  descended  from  its  lonely  isola- 
tion at  the  remote  edge  of  things,  whence  it  operated 
as  unmoved  mover  and  ultimate  good,  to  take  its 
seat  in  the  moving  affairs  of  men.  Theory  may 
therefore  become  responsible  to  the  practices  that 
have  generated  it;  the  good  be  connected  with  na- 
ture, but  with  nature  naturally,  not  metaphysically 
conceived,  and  social  life  be  cherished  in  behalf  of 

[2571 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

its  own  immediate  possibilities,  not  on  the  ground  of 
its  remote  connections  with  a  cosmic  reason  and 
absolute  end.  —  "Influence  of  Darwin",  p.  55. 

In  the  preface  to  the  "Influence  of  Darwin"  he 
quotes  a  German  definition  of  pragmatism : l 

Epistemologically,  nominalism ;  psychologically, 
voluntarism;  cosmologically,  energism ;  metaphys- 
ically, agnosticism;  ethically,  meliorism  on  the 
basis  of  the  Bentham-Mill-utilitarianism. 

Dewey,  who  dislikes  to  wear  even  one  tag  —  and 
that  a  nice  new  clean  one  —  naturally  resents  having 
these  five  old  ones  tied  to  him,  so  he  says : 

It  may  be  that  pragmatism  will  turn  out  to  be  all 
of  this  formidable  array,  but  even  should  it  the  one 
who  thus  defines  it  has  hardly  come  within  earshot 
of  it.  For  whatever  else  pragmatism  is  or  is  not, 
the  pragmatic  spirit  is  primarily  a  revolt  against 
that  habit  of  mind  which  disposes  of  anything  what- 
ever —  even  so  humble  an  affair  as  a  new  method  in 
philosophy  —  by  tucking  it  away,  after  this  fashion, 
in  the  pigeon-holes  of  a  filing  cabinet.  .  .  . 

It  is  better  to  view  pragmatism  quite  vaguely  as 
part  and  parcel  of  a  general  movement  of  intellectual 
reconstruction.  For  otherwise  we  seem  to  have  no 
recourse  save  to  define  pragmatism  —  as  does  our 

1  To  get  the  full  force  of  this  portentous  definition  one  must  read  it 
in  the  original :  Gewiss  ist  der  Pragmatismus  erkenntniss-theoretisch 
Nominalismus,  psychologisck  Voluntarismus,  naturphilosophisch  Ener- 
gismus,  metaphysisch  Agnosticismus,  ethisch  Meliorismus  auf  Gnindlage 
des  Bentham-Millschen  Utilitarismus. 

[258] 


JOHN   DEWEY 

German  author  —  in  terms  of  the  very  past  systems 
against  which  it  is  a  reaction ;  or,  in  escaping  that 
alternative,  to  regard  it  as  a  fixed  rival  system 
making  like  claim  to  completeness  and  finality. 
And  if,  as  I  believe,  one  of  the  marked  traits  of  the 
pragmatic  movement  is  just  the  surrender  of  every 
such  claim,  how  have  we  furthered  our  understand- 
ing of  pragmatism  ? 

In  one  of  his  Socratic  dialogues  *  Dewey  brings 
in  at  the  close  Chesterton's  flip  refutation  of  prag- 
matism : 

Pupil.  What  you  say  calls  to  mind  something  of 
Chesterton's  that  I  read  recently:  "I  agree  with 
the  pragmatists  that  apparent  objective  truth  is  not 
the  whole  matter;  that  there  is  an  authoritative 
need  to  believe  the  things  that  are  necessary  to  the 
human  mind.  But  I  say  that  one  of  those  neces- 
sities precisely  is  a  belief  in  objective  truth.  Prag- 
matism is  a  matter  of  human  needs  and  one  of  the 
first  of  human  needs  is  to  be  something  more  than  a 
pragmatist." 

You  would  say,  if  I  understand  you  aright,  that 
to  fall  back  upon  the  necessity  of  the  "human  mind" 
to  believe  in  certain  absolute  truths,  is  to  evade  a 
proper  demand  for  testing  the  human  mind  and  all 
its  works. 

Teacher.  My  son,  I  am  glad  to  leave  the  last  word 
with  you.  This  enfant  terrible  of  intellectualism  has 
revealed  that  the  chief  objection  of  absolutists  to 
the  pragmatic  doctrine  of  the  personal  (or  "sub- 

1 "  A  Catechism  Concerning  Truth  "  in  "  The  Influence  of  Darwin 
on  Philosophy  and  Other  Essays." 

l*59l 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

jective")  factor  in  belief  is  that  the  pragmatist  has 
spilled  the  personal  milk  in  the  absolutist's  coconut. 

It  is  curious  to  see  how  many  different  classes 
are  now  holding  up  Germany  as  a  horrible  example 
of  the  dangers  of  the  theories  they  oppose.  The 
Anglican  Catholics  blame  Luther  for  the  war  and 
look  upon  the  prospective  triumph  of  the  Allies  as 
the  final  destruction  of  Protestantism  in  the  world. 
The  orthodox  believe  that  Germany  got  into  trouble 
through  higher  criticism.  The  classicists  say  that 
she  is  suffering  from  an  overdose  of  science.  The 
Absolute  Idealists  ascribe  the  bad  conduct  of  Ger- 
many to  her  desertion  of  Kant,  Hegel,  and  Fichte  to 
follow  after  the  new  gods  —  or  no  gods  —  of  Haeckel 
and  Nietzsche.  But  Dewey,  on  the  contrary,  holds 
Kant,  Hegel,  and  Fichte  responsible  for  it  all. 
"That  philosophical  absolutism  may  be  practically 
as  dangerous  as  matter-of-fact  political  absolutism 
history  testifies."  This  is  no  new  notion  cooked  up 
for  the  occasion,  like  so  many  of  them,  but  one  which 
Dewey  plainly  stated  six  years  before  the  outbreak 
of  the  war  in  his  address  on  Ethics  at  Columbia 
University.  In  speaking  of  Kant's  denudation  of 
Pure  Reason  of  all  concrete  attributes  he  said  : 

Reason  became  a  mere  voice,  which  having  noth- 
ing particular  to  say,  said  Law,  Duty,  in  general, 

[260] 


JOHN   DEWEY 

leaving  to  the  existing  social  order  of  the  Prussia 
of  Frederick  the  Great  the  congenial  task  of  declar- 
ing just  what  was  obligatory  in  the  concrete.  The 
marriage  of  freedom  and  authority  was  thus  cele- 
brated with  the  understanding  that  sentimental 
primacy  went  to  the  former  and  practical  control 
to  the  latter.  —  "  Influence  of  Darwin  ",  p.  65. 

After  the  war  began  he  expanded  this  idea  in  his 
McNair  lectures  at  the  University  of  North  Caro- 
lina.1 Because  Germany  has  developed  continuously 
without  any  decided  break  with  its  past  like  the 
French  Revolution  or  the  transplanting  of  Euro- 
peans to  America,  German  thinkers  have  come  to 
declare  all  progress  as  the  unfolding  of  national  life 
and  to  declare  impossible  the  construction  of  con- 
stitutions such  as  we  have  in  the  New  World.  Dewey 
traces  the  intellectual  process  by  which  the  German 
people  have  reached  the  very  startling  opinions  they 
now  hold  as  to  their  mission  in  the  world  as  follows : 

The  premises  of  the  historic  syllogism  are  plain. 
First,  the  German  Luther  who  saved  for  mankind 
the  principle  of  spiritual  freedom  against  Latin 
externalism;  then  Kant  and  Fichte,  who  wrought 
out  the  principle  into  a  final  philosophy  of  science, 
morals  and  the  State ;  as  conclusion,  the  German 
nation  organized  in  order  to  win  the  world  to  a 
recognition  of  the  principle,  and  thereby  to  estab- 
lish the  rule  of  freedom  and  science  in  humanity  as 

1  Published  as  "German  Philosophy  and  Politics"  (Holt),  1915. 
[26l] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

a  whole.  ...  In  the  grosser  sense  of  the  words, 
Germany  has  not  held  that  might  makes  right.  But 
it  has  been  instructed  by  a  long  line  of  philosophers 
that  it  is  the  business  of  ideal  right  to  gather  might 
to  itself  in  order  that  it  may  cease  to  be  merely  ideal. 
The  State  represents  exactly  this  incarnation  of 
ideal  law  and  right  in  effective  might. 

A  hundred  years  ago  Fichte  in  his  "Addresses  to 
the  German  Nation"  roused  his  countrymen  to  make 
a  stand  against  Napoleon  and  fulfill  their  mission  to 
"elevate  the  German  name  to  that  of  the  most 
glorious  of  all  peoples,  making  this  Nation  the  re- 
generator and  restorer  of  the  world."  "There  is  no 
middle  ground :  If  you  sink,  so  sinks  humanity 
entire  with  you,  without  hope  of  future  restoration." 

This  sounds  very  much  like  what  we  hear  in 
Germany  to-day,  although  the  present  German 
Empire  differs  markedly  in  some  respects  from  the 
ideal  State  that  Fichte  foresaw.  It  is  also  the  same 
sort  of  language  as  is  being  used  in  England  and  the 
other  allied  countries.  In  fact  every  nation  has 
the  same  sense  of  its  historic  divine  mission  and 
unique  importance  to  the  world's  civilization.  Cer- 
tainly we  cannot  deny  the  existence  of  that  feeling 
among  Americans.  To  quote  again  from  Fichte : 
"While  cosmopolitanism  is  the  dominant  will  that 
the  purpose  of  the  existence  of  humanity  be  actually 

[262! 


JOHN   DEWEY 

realized  in  humanity,  patriotism  is  the  will  that  this 
end  be  first  realized  in  the  particular  nation  to  which 
we  ourselves  belong,  and  that  this  achievement 
thence  spread  over  the  entire  race." 

This  might  seem  a  harmless  and  indeed  inspiring 
conception  of  patriotism,  but  when  the  Fichtean  idea 
of  a  particular  State  as  the  incarnation  of  the  divine 
will  is  combined  with  the  Hegelian  idea  of  progress 
through  conflict,  it  makes  a  fatal  mixture,  as  Dewey 
shows  : 

Philosophical  justification  of  war  follows  inevitably 
from  a  philosophy  of  history  composed  in  national- 
istic terms.  History  is  the  movement,  the  march 
of  God  on  earth  through  time.  Only  one  nation  at 
a  time  can  be  the  latest  and  hence  the  fullest  realiza- 
tion of  God.  The  movement  of  God  in  history  is 
thus  particularly  manifest  in  those  changes  by  which 
unique  place  passes  from  one  nation  to  another.  War 
is  the  signally  visible  occurrence  of  such  a  flight  of 
the  divine  spirit  in  its  onward  movement. 

This  fallacious  line  of  argument  is,  in  Dewey's 
opinion,  the  logical  outcome  of  the  a  priori  and 
absolutist  metaphysics  which  has  prevailed  in 
Europe  during  the  last  century,  and  for  which  he 
would  substitute  the  method  of  intelligent  experi- 
mentation. He  says,  "The  present  situation  pre- 
sents the  spectacle  of  the  breakdown  of  the  whole 
philosophy  of  Nationalism,  political,  racial  and 

[263] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

cultural,"  and  he  urges  as  a  substitute  the  promo- 
tion of  "the  efficacy  of  human  intercourse  irrespective 
of  class,  racial,  geographical  and  national  limits." 
When  we  see  the  appalling  results  to  which  the  doctrine 
of  Nationalism  has  led,  we  may  indeed  regard  it  with 
Dewey  as  a  logical  breakdown,  but  I  fear  that  ac- 
tually it  has  become  more  powerful,  pervading,  and 
firmly  fixed  than  ever  through  the  psychological 
and  economic  experiences  of  the  war.1 

Doctor  F.  C.  S.  Schiller  of  Oxford  calls  Dewey's 
"German  Philosophy  and  Politics"  "an  entirely 
admirable  book;  clear,  calm,  cogent,  and  popular 
without  being  shallow"  and  he  further  says : 

Professor  Dewey  was  assuredly  the  ideal  person 
to  handle  the  subject.  For  though  he  had  made 
a  deep  and  sympathetic  study  of  German  philos- 
ophy, he  had  in  the  end  turned  away  from  it  to 
become  a  leader  in  the  movement  which  is  most 
antithetical  to  the  traditionally  German  type  of 
philosophizing.  It  must  not  indeed  be  alleged  that 
the  Anglo-Saxon  world  has  a  monopoly  of  the  prag- 

1  "German  Philosophy  and  Politics"  is  sympathetically  reviewed  by 
Professor  Santayana  in  the  Journal  of  Philosophy,  Psychology  and  Scien- 
tific Methods  for  November  25,  1915.  The  same  Journal  reprints  (vol. 
XII,  p.  584)  a  criticism  appearing  in  The  New  Republic  (vol.  IV,  p.  234) 
by  Professor  Hocking  of  Harvard,  who  thinks  that  the  fault  of  the  Ger- 
mans is  being  too  pragmatic.  Professor  Dewey's  reply  is  published  with 
it.  See  also  Dewey's  admirable  analysis  of  the  national  psychology  of 
Germany,  France,  and  England  in  his  article  "On  Understanding  the 
Mind  of  Germany",  Atlantic,  vol.  117,  p.  251. 

[264] 


JOHN  DEWEY 

matic  habit  of  mind ;  for  all  men  have  to  act  and 
pragmatism  is  only  the  theoretic  apprehension  of 
the  attitude  which  imposes  itself  on  every  agent 
everywhere.  But  it  is  probably  right  to  regard  this 
habit  of  mind  as  characteristically  congenial  to  Anglo- 
Saxon  life,  and  it  was  a  perception  of  this  that  so 
infuriated  our  germanized  professors  who  prided 
themselves  on  their  superiority  to  the  vulgar  practi- 
cality of  the  national  bent.1 

A  stranger  who  drops  into  one  of  Professor  Dewey's 
classes  is  at  first  apt  to  be  puzzled  to  account  for  the 
extent  of  his  influence  and  the  devotion  of  his  dis- 
ciples. There  is  nothing  in  his  manner  of  delivery 
to  indicate  that  he  is  saying  anything  of  importance, 
and  it  takes  some  time  to  realize  that  he  is.  He 
talks  along  in  a  casual  sort  of  way  with  a  low  and  un- 
eventful voice  and  his  eyes  mostly  directed  toward 
the  bare  desk  or  out  of  the  window.  Occasionally 
he  wakes  up  to  the  fact  that  the  students  in  the  back 
seats  are  having  difficulty  in  hearing  him,  and  then 
he  comes  down  with  explosive  stress  on  the  next 
word,  a  preposition  as  like  as  not.  His  lectures  are 
punctuated  by  pauses  but  not  in  a  way  to  facilitate 
their  comprehension.  Sometimes  in  the  midst  of  a 
sentence,  perhaps  between  an  adjective  and  its 
noun,  his  train  of  thought  will  be  shunted  off  on  to 

1  Mind,  April,  1916. 
[265] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

another  line,  and  the  class  has  to  sit  patiently  at 
the  junction  station  until  it  comes  back,  as  it  always 
does  eventually.  The  difficulty  of  utterance  in  his 
lectures,  like  the  tortuous  style  of  his  technical  writ- 
ings, results  from  overconscientiousness.  When  he 
misses  the  right  word  he  does  not  pick  any  one  at 
hand  and  go  on  but  stops  talking  until  he  finds  the 
one  he  wants,  and  he  is  so  anxious  to  avoid  a  mis- 
understanding that  he  sometimes  fails  to  insure  an 
understanding.  Talking  has  never  become  a  reflex 
action  with  Dewey.  He  has  to  think  before  he 
speaks.  Few  professors  and  almost  no  instructors 
are  bothered  that  way. 

In  profile  Professor  Dewey  looks  something  like 
Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  the  same  long  lean  face 
and  neck  and  nose.  From  the  front  one  would  take 
him  to  be  a  Kentucky  colonel  disguised  in  spectacles. 
His  long  straight  black  hair,  parted  in  the  middle, 
is  now  getting  gray,  but  his  drooping  mustaches, 
being  twenty  years  younger,  are  still  dark.  His 
eyes  are  black  and  keen,  and  one  can  catch  a  twinkle 
in  them  if  the  lids  do  not  drop  too  quick.  His  neck- 
tie is  usually  awry,  and  several  thousands  of  orderly 
schoolma'ams  have  felt  their  hands  itch  to  jerk  it 
straight.  His  drawling  careless  tone  and  hesitant 
manner  quite  disguise  the  boldness  of  his  thought 

[266] 


JOHN   DEWEY 

and  the  logical  order  of  its  wording.  Questions 
from  the  class  never  disconcert  him,  however  in- 
opportune, and  the  more  he  is  heckled  the  better 
he  talks. 

One  of  his  former  students  at  Columbia,  Ran- 
dolph S.  Bourne,  gives  this  pen  sketch  of  Professor 
Dewey : l 

Nothing  is  more  symbolic  of  Professor  Dewey's 
democratic  attitude  towards  life  than  the  disinte- 
grated array  of  his  published  writings.  Where  the 
neatly  uniform  works  of  William  James  are  to  be 
found  in  every  public  library,  you  must  hunt  long 
and  far  for  the  best  things  of  the  man  who,  since  the 
other's  death,  is  the  most  significant  thinker  in 
America.  Pamphlets  and  reports  of  obscure  edu- 
cational societies ;  school  journals,  university  mono- 
graphs, and  philosophical  journals,  limited  to  the 
pedant  few;  these  are  the  burial-places  of  much  of 
this  intensely  alive,  futuristic  philosophy.  .  .  .  No 
man,  I  think,  with  such  universally  important  things 
to  say  on  almost  every  social  and  intellectual  activity 
of  the  day,  was  ever  published  in  forms  more  in- 
geniously contrived  to  thwart  the  interest  of  the 
prospective  public. 

Professor  Dewey's  thought  is  inaccessible  because 
he  has  always  carried  his  simplicity  of  manner,  his 
dread  of  show  or  self-advertisement,  almost  to  the 
point  of  extravagance.  In  all  his  psychology  there 
is  no  place  for  the  psychology  of  prestige.  His  de- 
mocracy seems  almost  to  take  that  extreme  form  of 
refusing  to  bring  one's  self  or  one's  ideas  to  the 

1  The  New  Republic ,  March  13,  1915. 
[267] 


SIX  MAJOR   PROPHETS 

attention  of  others.  On  the  college  campus  or  in  the 
lecture-room  he  seems  positively  to  efface  himself. 
The  uncertainty  of  his  silver-gray  hair  and  drooping 
mustache,  of  his  voice,  of  his  clothes,  suggests  that 
he  has  almost  studied  the  technique  of  protective 
coloration.  It  will  do  you  no  good  to  hear  him 
lecture.  His  sentences,  flowing  and  exact  and  lucid 
when  read,  you  will  find  strung  in  long  festoons  of 
obscurity  between  pauses  for  the  awaited  right 
word.  The  whole  business  of  impressing  yourself 
on  other  people,  of  getting  yourself  over  to  the 
people  who  want  to  and  ought  to  have  you,  has 
simply  never  come  into  his  ultra-democratic  mind. 

A  prophet  dressed  in  the  clothes  of  a  professor  of 
logic,  he  seems  almost  to  feel  shame  that  he  has  seen 
the  implications  of  democracy  more  clearly  than 
anybody  else  in  the  great  would-be  democratic 
society  about  him,  and  so  been  forced  into  the  un- 
welcome task  of  teaching  it. 

Knowing  that  every  biographer  is  expected  to 
show  that  the  subject  of  his  sketch  got  his  peculiar 
talents  by  honest  inheritance,  I  wrote  to  Professor 
Dewey  to  inquire  what  there  was  in  his  genealogy 
to  account  for  his  becoming  a  philosopher.  His 
ancestry  is  discouraging  to  those  who  would  find  an 
explanation  for  all  things  in  heredity. 

My  ancestry,  particularly  on  my  father's  side,  is 
free  from  all  blemish.  All  my  forefathers  earned  an 
honest  living  as  farmers,  wheelwrights,  coopers.  I 
was  absolutely  the  first  one  in  seven  generations  to 
fall  from  grace.  In  the  last  few  years  atavism  has 

[268] 


JOHN   DEWEY 

set  in  and  I  have  raised  enough  vegetables  and  fruit 
really  to  pay  for  my  own  keep. 

John  Dewey  was  born  in  Burlington,  Vermont, 
October  20,  1859,  the  son  of  Archibald  S.  and  Lucina 
A.  (Rich)  Dewey.  His  elder  brother,  Davis  Rich 
Dewey,  is  professor  of  economics  and  statistics  in 
the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology  and  the 
author  of  the  Special  Report  on  Employees  and 
Wages  in  the  I2th  Census  as  well  as  of  many  other 
works  on  finance  and  industry. 

John  Dewey  went  to  the  State  University  in  his 
native  town  and  received  his  A.  B.  degree  at  twenty. 
Being  then  uncertain  whether  his  liking  for  philo- 
sophical studies  was  sufficient  to  be  taken  as  a  call  to 
that  calling  he  applied  to  the  one  man  in  America 
most  competent  and  willing  to  decide  such  a  ques- 
tion, W.  T.  Harris,  afterward  United  States  Com- 
missioner for  Education,  but  then  superintendent 
of  schools  in  St.  Louis.  Think  of  the  courage  and 
enterprise  of  a  man  who  while  filling  this  busy  posi- 
tion and  when  the  war  was  barely  over  started  a 
Journal  of  Speculative  Philosophy  and  founded  a 
Philosophical  Society  and  produced  a  series  of  trans- 
lations of  Hegel,  Fichte,  and  other  German  meta- 
physicians. It  would  be  hard  to  estimate  the 
influence  of  Doctor  Harris  in  raising  the  standards 

[269] 


SIX  MAJOR   PROPHETS 

of  American  schools  and  in  arousing  an  interest  in 
intellectual  problems.  When  young  Dewey  sent 
him  a  brief  article  with  a  request  for  personal  ad- 
vice he  returned  so  encouraging  a  reply  that  Dewey 
decided  to  devote  himself  to  philosophy.  So,  after 
a  year  spent  at  home  reading  under  the  direction  of 
Professor  Torrey  of  the  University  of  Vermont,  one 
of  the  old  type  of  scholarly  gentleman,  Dewey  went 
to  Johns  Hopkins  University,  the  first  American 
university  to  make  graduate  and  research  work  its 
main  object.  Here  he  studied  under  George  S. 
Morris  and  followed  him  to  the  University  of  Michi- 
gan as  Instructor  in  Philosophy  after  receiving  his 
Ph.D.  at  Johns  Hopkins  in  1884.  Two  years  later 
he  married  Alice  Chipman  of  Fenton,  Michigan, 
who  has  been  ever  since  an  effective  collaborator  in 
his  educational  and  social  work.  In  1888  he  went 
to  the  University  of  Minnesota  as  Professor  of 
Philosophy  but  was  called  back  to  Michigan  at  the 
end  of  one  year. 

When  President  Harper  went  through  the  country 
picking  up  brilliant  and  promising  young  men  for 
the  new  University  of  Chicago,  Dewey  was  his 
choice  for  the  chair  of  philosopher.  During  the  ten 
years  Dewey  spent  on  the  Midway  Plaisance  he 
had  the  opportunity  to  try  out  the  radical  ideas  of 

[270] 


JOHN   DEWEY 

education  of  which  I  have  spoken.  In  1904  Dewey 
was  called  to  Columbia  University,  where  he  has 
since  remained.  Besides  his  classwork  he  has  always 
been  active  though  rarely  conspicuous  in  many  ed- 
ucational and  social  movements.  One  of  the  latest 
of  these  is  the  formation  of  the  Association  of 
University  Professors,  of  which  he  was  the  first 
president. 

The  title  of  his  latest  volume,  "Democracy  and 
Education",  gives  the  keynote  of  his  philosophy 
and  the  aim  of  his  life.  In  a  recent  article l  he  puts 
it  in  these  words : 

I  am  one  of  those  who  think  that  the  only  test 
and  justification  of  any  form  of  political  and  eco- 
nomic society  is  its  contribution  to  art  and  science  — 
to  what  may  roundly  be  called  culture.  That 
America  has  not  yet  so  justified  itself  is  too  obvious 
for  even  lament.  .  .  .  Since  we  can  neither  beg 
nor  borrow  a  culture  without  betraying  both  it  and 
ourselves,  nothing  remains  save  to  produce  one.  .  .  . 
Our  culture  must  be  consonant  with  realistic  science 
and  with  machine  industry,  instead  of  a  refuge  from 
them.  ...  It  is  for  education  to  bring  the  light 
of  science  and  the  power  of  work  to  the  aid  of  every 
soul  that  it  may  discover  its  quality.  For  in  a 
spiritually  democratic  society  every  individual  would 
realize  distinction.  Culture  would  then  be  for  the 
first  time  in  human  history  an  individual  achievement 
and  not  a  class  possession. 

1  The  New  Republic,  July  i,  1916. 
[271] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

How  TO  READ  DEWEY 

As  has  been  said  previously,  Dewey's  writings  are 
scattered  far  and  wide  in  various  periodicals  and 
educational  series.  He  has  never  been  able  to  say 
"no"  to  any  struggling  journal  of  socialism  or  school 
reform  that  begged  him  for  an  article  although  it 
meant  no  pay,  little  influence,  and  speedy  oblivion 
for  his  contribution.  The  graduate  student  of 
twenty-five  years  hence  who  undertakes  to  get  a 
Ph.D.  by  making  a  complete  collection  of  Dewey's 
works  will  earn  his  degree.  The  main  principles 
of  Dewey's  philosophy,  imparted  viva  voce  to  suc- 
cessive generations  of  students,  have  never  been 
printed  in  a  complete  and  systematic  form,  though 
his  ideas  have  interfused  the  schools  of  the  country 
through  the  teachers  he  has  trained  and  the  educa- 
tional books  he  has  written. 

The  nearest  thing  to  a  short  cut  to  Dewey's  phi- 
losophy that  he  has  given  us  is  "How  We  Think" 
(Heath,  1910),  and  with  this  the  reader  may  well 
begin.  "Essays  in  Experimental  Logic"  (Univer- 
sity of  Chicago  Press,  1916)  requires  for  its  complete 
comprehension  some  knowledge  of  current  contro- 
versies in  philosophy.  But  the  review  of  James's 
"Pragmatism",  contained  in  the  chapter  "What 
Pragmatism  Means",  wrill  be  of  interest  to  any 
reader  seeking  an  answer  to  that  question. 

His  epoch-making  work,  "The  School  and  So- 
ciety" (University  of  Chicago  Press,  first  edition 
1899,  second  edition  1915),  has  by  no  means  lost  its 
value  although  much  that  was  prophecy  then  is 
now  fulfilled.  Most  readers  will  be  more  interested 
in  the  fulfillments  as  described  in  "Schools  of  To- 
morrow" (Dutton,  1915).  This  contains,  besides 

[272] 


JOHN   DEWEY 

the  description  of  the  new  schools  by  his  daughter, 
Evelyn  Dewey,  several  chapters  by  Professor  Dewey 
on  the  theory  and  aims  of  the  educational  move- 
ment they  represent.  A  more  complete  and  system- 
atic exposition  of  the  principles  of  education  under 
modern  conditions  is  to  be  found  in  his  most  recent 
book,  "Democracy  and  Education"  (Macmillan, 
1916).  Professor  Moore  of  Chicago  who  reviews 
this  volume  in  the  International  Journal  of  Ethics 
(1916,  p.  547)  says  of  it :  "The  thinking  world  has 
long  since  learned  to  expect  from  Professor  Dewey 
matters  of  prime  importance.  Of  the  general  sig- 
nificance of  this  volume  it  is  perhaps  enough  to  say 
that,  in  the  reviewer's  opinion,  it  is  the  most  im- 
portant of  Professor  Dewey's  productions  thus  far. 
In  defiance  of  possible  imputations  of  chauvinism, 
the  reviewer  will  also  say  that  it  would  be  difficult 
to  overstate  its  import  and  value  for  all  students 
of  education,  philosophy,  and  society." 

The  volume  clumsily  entitled  "The  Influence  of 
Darwin  on  Philosophy  and  Other  Essays  in  Con- 
temporary Thought"  (Holt,  1910)  contains,  besides 
the  anniversary  address  which  gives  it  its  title,  ten 
essays  chiefly  concerned  with  the  exposition  and 
defense  of  Dewey's  form  of  pragmatism,  "immediate 
empiricism."  "German  Philosophy  and  Politics" 
(Holt,  1915)  is  discussed  in  the  preceding  pages. 
Dewey's  "Psychology"  (Harper,  1886)  has  largely 
lost  its  interest  through  the  rapid  advance  of  the 
science  and  the  altered  viewpoint  of  the  author.  The 
"  Ethics  "  which  he  wrote  in  collaboration  with  Pro- 
fessor Tufts  I  have  previously  mentioned  (Holt,  1908). 

The  practical  applications  of  Dewey's  philosophy 
to  current  educational  and  public  questions  may 
best  be  found  in  the  brief  and  popular  articles  that 

[273] 


SIX  MAJOR   PROPHETS 

he  contributed  frequently  to  The  New  Republic 
(New  York)  in  1915-1916.  His  professional  con- 
tributions to  logical  theory  and  epistemology  ap- 
pear mostly  in  the  fortnightly  organ  of  the  philo- 
sophical department  of  Columbia  University,  the 
Journal  of  Philosophy,  Psychology  and  Scientific 
Methods. 

A  volume  of  eight  essays  on  the  pragmatic  attitude 
was  published  in  January  1917  by  Henry  Holt  under 
the  title  of  "Creative  Intelligence."  The  leading 
essay  on  "  The  Need  for  a  Recovery  of  Philosophy  " 
is  by  John  Dewey. 

Besides  the  articles  to  which  reference  has  been 
made  in  the  footnotes  of  the  preceding  pages  the 
following  writings  of  Dewey  should  be  mentioned  : 
"Science  as  Subject-matter  and  as  Method",  the 
vice  presidential  address  of  the  section  on  edu- 
cation of  the  Boston  meeting  of  the  American 
Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  1909, 
(in  Science,  January  28,  1910) ;  "The  Problem  of 
Truth",  George  Leib  Harrison  lectures  before  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  1911  (in  Old  Penn 
Weekly  Review);  "Maeterlinck"  (Hibbert  Journal, 
vol.  9,  p.  765)  and  "Is  Nature  Good?"  (Hibbert 
Journal,  vol.  7,  p.  827) ;  "The  Existence  of  the 
World  as  a  Problem"  (Philosophical  Review,  vol.  24, 
p.  357);  "Darwin's  Influence  upon  Philosophy" 
(Popular  Science  Monthly,  vol.  75,  p.  90) ;  Presi- 
dential address  to  the  American  Association  of 
University  Professors  (Science,  January  29,  1915); 
"Professional  Spirit  Among  Teachers"  (American 
Teacher,  New  York,  October,  1913) ;  The  Inter- 
national Journal  of  Ethics  published  "Force  and 
Coercion"  (vol.  26,  p.  359);  "Progress"  (vol.  26, 
p.  311);  "Nature  and  Reason  in  Law"  (vol.  25, 

[2743 


JOHN  DEWEY 

p.  25);  "History  for  the  Educator"  and  other 
articles  appeared  in  Progressive  Journal  of  Educa- 
tion, Chicago,  1909;  "Voluntarism  in  the  Roycean 
Philosophy"  in  the  Philosophical  Review,  May,  1916; 
"Logical  Foundations  of  The  Scientific  Treatment 
of  Morality"  in  the  Decennial  Publications  of  the 
University  of  Chicago. 

A  criticism  of  Bergson  by  Dewey  under  the  title 
of  "Perception  and  Organic  Action"  may  be  found 
in  the  Journal  of  Philosophy,  Psychology  and  Scien- 
tific Afethods,  November  21,  1912.  Professor  Wil- 
helm  Ostwald,  who,  as  I  said  in  my  chapter  on  him, 
has  devoted  much  attention  to  educational  reforms, 
includes  a  sketch  of  Dewey  by  Franz  Ludwig  in  the 
series  on  Moderne  Schulreforme  in  Das  Monistische 
Jahrhundert  of  May  31,  1915.  For  a  criticism  of 
Dewey's  social  philosophy  see  the  articles  by  Lester 
Lee  Bernhard  of  the  University  of  Chicago  in  Ameri- 
can Journal  of  Sociology. 

No  biography  of  Dewey  has  yet  been  written 
and  none  ever  will  be  if  he  can  prevent  it.  H.  W. 
Schneider  of  Columbia  University  has  prepared  a 
complete  bibliography  of  Dewey's  writings,  not  yet 
published. 


(275! 


CHAPTER  VI 

RUDOLF   EUCKEN 
APOSTLE  OF  THE  SPIRITUAL  LIFE 

To  the  history  of  and  criticism  of  these  concep- 
tions and  their  terminology  Professor  Eucken  has 
brought  thorough  and  careful  reading,  acute  and 
candid  criticism,  and  a  clear  and  solid  style.  While 
he  is  at  home  among  the  systems  of  the  past,  he 
seems  equally  familiar  with  the  controversies  of 
the  present.  Above  all,  he  has  studied  brevity, 
and  has  mastered  the  art  of  expressing  in  a  few 
words  the  results  of  patient  research  and  critical 
discrimination. 

The  writer  of  this  notice  was  constrained  to 
recommend  the  work  for  translation  to  his  friend 
and  former  pupil  by  his  estimate  of  the  intrinsic 
value  of  the  treatise  and  the  desire  that  it  might 
be  brought  within  reach  of  English  readers  as 
eminently  suited  to  the  times.  He  can  say  with 
assured  confidence  that  there  are  few  books  within 
his  knowledge  which  are  better  fitted  to  aid  the 
student  who  wishes  to  acquaint  himself  with  the 
course  of  superlative  and  scientific  thinking  and  to 
form  an  intelligent  estimate  of  most  of  the  current 
theories.1 

1  "The  Fundamental  Concepts  of  Modern  Philosophic  Thought, 
Critically  and  Historically  Considered"  by  Rudolf  Eucken,  Professor 

[276] 


RUDOLF  EUCKEN 

These  were  the  words  with  which  Professor 
Eucken  was  introduced  to  the  American  public 
in  1880  by  one  who  was  a  good  judge  of  men  and 
books,  the  primary  qualification  of  a  college  presi- 
dent. Thirty-two  years  later  Professor  Eucken 
came  to  America ;  this  time  in  person,  but  under 
the  auspices  of  Harvard  and  the  University  of 
New  York,  instead  of  Yale.  This  time  he  reached 
a  larger  audience ;  partly  owing  to  his  greater 
fame,  partly  to  a  change  in  the  popular  attitude 
toward  the  views  he  presents.  In  1908,  when 
Eucken  received  the  Nobel  prize  for  the  greatest 
work  of  idealistic  literature,  there  was  no  book 
of  his  accessible  to  the  English  reader,  for  the 
translation  instigated  by  President  Porter  was  out 
of  print.  Since  then  all  his  important  works  have 
been  brought  out  in  England  and  America ;  and  the 
periodical  indexes  record  a  growing  interest  in  his 
thought,  corresponding  to  that  which  is  mani- 
fested in  Germany. 

The  Nobel  prizes  have  failed  to  carry  out  the 
intention  of  their  founder,  which  was  to  place 
$100,000  or  so  immediately  into  the  hands  of  a 

in  Jena.  Translated  by  M.  Stuart  Phelps,  Professor  in  Smith  College. 
With  additions  and  corrections  by  the  author  and  an  introduction  by 
Noah  Porter,  president  of  Yale  College.  Appleton,  1880. 

[277] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

man  who  had  made  a  signal  contribution  to  science, 
literature,  or  peace.  Instead  of  this,  the  Nobel 
committees  absorb  a  liberal  moiety  of  the  income 
of  the  fund  in  local  "administrative  expenses" 
and  usually  give  the  residue,  now  amounting  to 
some  $37,000,  to  men  whose  reputations  have 
long  been  established ;  for  example,  in  literature, 
Sully-Prudhomme,  Mommsen,  Bjornson,  Mistral, 
Kipling,  and  Heyse.  But  in  so  interpreting  their 
mandate  the  Nobel  committees  have  fulfilled 
another  useful  function,  possibly  as  much  needed 
as  that  conceived  by  Alfred  Nobel.  If  they  have 
not  discovered  original  genius,  they  have  at  least 
pointed  it  out  to  the  world  at  large.  The  men 
thus  distinguished  as  having  contributed  to  human 
progress  have  extended  their  influence  over  their 
contemporaries,  as  well  as  received  a  due  apprecia- 
tion of  their  efforts.  The  Nobel  prize  does  not 
add  to  the  stature  of  a  man,  but  it  does  elevate 
him  to  a  pulpit. 

In  the  case  of  Eucken  the  value  of  this  is  evi- 
dent. He  did  not  need  the  assistance  of  the  Nobel 
fund  in  order  to  prosecute  his  researches,  for  the 
laboratory  expenses  of  a  metaphysician  are  but 
slight,  and  Jena  is  as  cheap  a  place  to  live  as  can 
nowadays  be  found  in  civilized  lands.  The  award 

[278] 


RUDOLF  EUCKEN 

of  the  prize  did  not,  of  course,  add  to  his  reputa- 
tion in  philosophical  circles,  but  Eucken  does  not 
believe  that  the  influence  of  a  philosopher  should 
be  confined  to  philosophical  circles.  He  repudiates 
entirely  the  aloof,  impartial,  disinterested  spectator 
attitude  which  philosophers  in  general  have  thought 
it  necessary  to  pretend  to  assume.  The  question 
is,  in  short,  what  kind  of  a  scientist  the  philosopher 
should  imitate :  the  chemist  who  transforms  the 
world  in  which  he  lives,  or  the  meteorologist  who 
merely  records  the  atmospheric  currents  without 
attempting  to  guide  them  ?  Eucken  is  not  only 
a  teacher;  he  is  a  preacher.  He  has  a  message 
which  he  believes  of  vital  importance  to  his  con- 
temporaries, so  it  cannot  be  a  matter  of  indifference 
to  him  that  he  is,  in  his  later  years,  gaining  a  wider 
audience,  that  his  works  are  the  most  widely  cur- 
rent philosophical  writings  of  the  present  day  in 
Germany,1  and  are  being  extensively  translated  into 
other  languages. 

This  growing  popularity  is  all  the  more  note- 
worthy since  it  is  not  attained  by  any  novelty  of 
form,  or  even  brilliancy  of  style.  Eucken  never 

1  So  says  Professor  Heinrich  Weinel  in  an  interesting  article  on  "Re- 
ligious Life  and  Thought  in  Germany  To-day",  in  the  Hibbtrt  Journal, 
July,  1909. 

[279] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

tries  to  stimulate  thought  by  shocking  the  reader 
with  audacious  paradoxes,  as  did  Schopenhauer  and 
Nietzsche,  as  do  Shaw  and  Chesterton.  He  has 
none  of  the  freshness  of  phraseology  and  wealth  of 
novel  illustrations  which  attract  to  James  and  Berg- 
son  their  wide  circle  of  admirers.  He  does  not, 
like  Ostwald  and  Haeckel,  make  use  of  the  direct 
and  concrete  mode  of  expression  which  has  been 
introduced  into  literature  by  modern  science. 
Eucken  always  writes  in  a  serious  and  methodical 
style,  elaborating  his  line  of  thought  as  he  goes 
along  with  exactness  and  just  proportion ;  expressing 
himself  in  general  and  abstract  terms,  rarely  mak- 
ing use  of  imagery  or  concrete  illustrations,  never 
introducing  personalities.  A  sweeter-tempered  phi- 
losopher never  lived.  He  speaks  no  evil,  even 
of  the  dead.  He  indulges  in  no  polemics  with  his 
contemporaries.  In  his  historical  works  he  passes 
through  all  fields  of  thought,  gleaning  good  grain 
wherever  he  goes,  and  saying  as  little  as  possible 
about  the  tares  and  brambles  that  he  finds  with  it. 

Very  curiously,  it  has  been  Eucken's  lot  to  have 
been  closely  associated,  on  the  faculties  of  small 
universities,  with  the  two  men  whose  views  are 
most  antagonistic  to  his  :  at  Basel  with  Nietzsche 
and  at  Jena  with  Haeckel,  and  he  has  been  on  the 

[280] 


RUDOLF   EUCKEN 

best  of  terms  with  both  of  them.  I  was  particularly 
interested  in  what  Professor  Eucken  told  me  of 
Nietzsche,  whose  personality  and  philosophy  were 
in  such  violent  contradiction.  This  advocate  of 
ruthless  brutality,  this  scorner  of  sympathy  and 
compassion,  was  in  reality  a  most  tender-hearted 
man,  but  too  shy  and  sensitive  to  be  popular;  and 
when  his  feelings  were  hurt  he  wrote  down  in  a 
passion  what  he  felt  at  the  moment. 

At  the  University  of  Basel  Professor  Eucken 
often  served  with  Nietzsche  on  the  examining  com- 
mittee of  candidates  for  the  doctorate  in  classical 
philology.  On  such  occasions,  if  the  student  ap- 
peared to  be  getting  the  worst  of  it  in  the  verbal 
contest,  Nietzsche  would  be  observed  to  become 
more  and  more  nervous  until,  finally,  he  could 
contain  himself  no  longer  and  would  break  in  with 
leading  questions:  "I  suppose  you  mean  so-and- 
so?"  or  "Do  you  not  believe  this  or  that?"  until 
he  got  the  student  to  say  just  about  what  he  should 
have  said  in  the  first  place.  Professor  Eucken  does 
not  regard  the  widespread  influence  of  Nietzsche 
as  altogether  evil,  believing  he  should  not  be  held 
responsible  for  all  the  vagaries  and  extravagances 
of  his  devotees.  The  reason  of  Nietzsche's  popu- 
larity, according  to  Eucken,  is  his  strong  individual- 

[281] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

ism ;  for  the  Germans,  in  spite  of  governmental 
control  and  the  Social  Democracy,  are  pronounced 
individualists  in  character.  The  German  will  in- 
sist upon  having  his  own  house,  his  own  seat,  his 
own  opinion.  This  sounded  strange  to  the  Amer- 
ican, accustomed  to  have  Germany  referred  to  as 
the  most  regimented  of  nations. 

But  modern  Germany  is  a  land  of  incongruities 
and  contradictions,  a  wild  confusion  of  swirling 
cross-currents.  The  increase  of  population,  the 
checking  of  emigration,  the  amazing  prosperity, 
the  extension  of  commerce,  the  demand  for  terri- 
torial expansion,  would  indicate  a  sound  physical 
constitution  and  a  healthful  growth.  The  immense 
sale  of  serious  works  on  religion  and  philosophy 
shows  a  revival  of  interest  in  spiritual  affairs.  Yet, 
if  we  were  to  judge  of  the  character  of  the  people 
by  the  most  conspicuous  of  its  achievements  in  art 
and  literature,  we  should  say  that  modern  Germany 
is  hopelessly  decadent  and  corrupt.  In  drama  and  fic- 
tion Gallic  license  is  allied  with  Gothic  coarseness.  In 
pictorial  art  hideousness  and  viciousness  are  depicted 
by  means  of  strange  and  violent  methods.  Germany 
of  to-day,  as  seen  by  the  tourist,  is  a  land  of  spotted 
painting,  spotted  literature,  and  spotted  faces.1 

1  My  visit  to  Jena,  described  in  the  following  pages,  was  made  in  1910. 
[282] 


RUDOLF  EUCKEN 

In  the  little  university  town  of  Jena  the  incon- 
gruities of  modern  Germany  are  curiously  conspicu- 
ous. In  this  historic  stronghold  of  Protestantism, 
this  leader  in  the  Enlightenment,  the  home  of 
Goethe,  Schiller,  Novalis,  Fichte,  the  Humboldts, 
Hegel,  Schelling,  and  Wieland,  the  barbarous  cus- 
toms of  the  past  have  the  strongest  hold.  A  student 
is  likely  to  miss  his  seven  o'clock  Wednesday  lec- 
ture on  the  spiritual  life  because  he  sat  up  till  two 
o'clock  drinking  compulsory  beer  with  his  corps 
brothers  in  the  middle  of  the  marketplace.  And  he 
may  cut  out  his  eight  o'clock  Saturday  lecture  be- 
cause he  has  an  imperative  engagement  to  cut  off 
the  nose  or  the  ear  of  a  fellow  student  at  the  Men- 
surort  of  Dollnitz. 

Among  the  nobler  manifestations  of  the  spirit  of 
new  Germany  the  tourist  is  likely  to  take  most 
interest  in  the  architecture.  Here,  indeed,  he  will 
find  much  that  is  displeasing  and  eccentric,  but 
that  in  itself  is  encouraging,  for  it  shows  that  we 
are  in  the  presence  of  a  living  art  which  is  not 
content  to  keep  to  the  safe  and  beaten  paths,  but 
would  strike  out  new  ways  for  itself.  In  city  and 
country  unexpected  forms  and  colors  delight  the 
eye  on  villa,  monument,  and  public  building; 
new  and  ingenious  solutions  of  problems  as  old  as 

[283] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

man.  The  modern  German  architect  is  not  the 
imitator,  but  the  rival,  of  the  master  builders  of 
the  past.  He  knows  how  to  harmonize  the  old 
with  the  new,  utilizing  the  old  to  give  him  inspira- 
tion, but  not  permitting  it  to  hamper  him.  A 
striking  example  of  this  is  the  new  university  build- 
ings of  Jena,  erected  on  the  three  hundred  and 
fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  university  in  1908.  The 
whole  group  cost  only  three  hundred  and  seventy- 
five  thousand  dollars,  not  so  much  as  some  single 
buildings  in  our  leading  universities,  yet  I  know 
of  none  more  satisfactory  from  both  the  utilitarian 
and  the  esthetic  point  of  view.  Here  the  problem 
of  harmonization  was  particularly  difficult;  not 
only  must  the  new  buildings  fit  into  the  picture  of 
old  Jena,  but  a  tower  of  the  ancient  ducal  castle 
was  actually  to  be  incorporated.  Yet  the  archi- 
tect, Theodor  Fischer,  has  made  no  sacrifices  to 
the  spirit  of  antiquity.  At  Oxford  the  newer 
buildings  either  clash  violently  with  their  elders  or 
imitate  them  so  closely  as  to  be  almost  equally  in- 
convenient and  uncomfortable.  The  Jena  build- 
ings look  as  though  they  might  well  have  been 
built  by  Kurfurst  Johann  Friedrich  der  Gross- 
miitige  in  1558,  but  are  up  to  date,  commodious, 
hygienic,  well  ventilated,  steam  heated,  equipped 


RUDOLF  EUCKEN 

with  electric  lights  and  clocks,  and  electric  vacuum 
cleaners. 

There  are  no  superfluous  statues  stuck  around  in 
niches  and  on  pedestals.  The  adornment,  plastic 
and  polychromatic,  is  strictly  structural.  It  is 
put  where  it  belongs.  With  the  possible  exception 
of  a  Rodin  bust  of  Minerva  in  the  vestibule,  I 
did  not  see  any  "objects  of  art"  that  I  could  have 
carried  off  without  tearing  down  the  building.  On 
the  stone  of  the  north  fafade  are  roughly  chiseled 
the  Ephesian  Diana  in  the  gable,  and,  beneath, 
four  Egyptian-like  figures  representing  the  four 
faculties.  That  of  Philosophie,  with  solemn  and 
inscrutable  face,  is  very  appropriately  nearest  to 
the  lecture  room  of  Professor  Eucken.  As  we 
enter  we  see  opposite  the  portal  to  the  Aula,  the 
university  hall  of  state,  on  either  side  of  which 
are  gigantic  paintings  emblematic  of  the  trans- 
mission of  culture,  a  grown  man  on  one  side  hold- 
ing out  his  torch  to  a  young  man,  that  he  may 
light  his  torch  by  it.  The  most  important  picture 
at  the  Jena  University  is  the  Auszug  deutscher 
Studenten  im  Jahre  1815  by  Hodler,  who  used  as 
a  model  for  the  middle  figure  the  youngest  son  of 
Professor  Eucken. 

Auditorium  Number  I,  the  largest  classroom 
[285] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

of  the  new  building,  is  assigned  to  Eucken,  and 
we  find  it  already  about  half  filled,  although  it  is 
not  yet  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Some  seventy 
students  I  count,  and  among  them  about  a  dozen 
women,  not  segregated,  but  scattered  here  and 
there,  for  Jena  is  coeducational  now,  and  masculine 
resentment  at  the  intrusion  of  women  has  quite 
died  out.  The  students  may  seat  themselves  wher- 
ever they  choose,  affixing  a  card  with  name  and 
hour  if  they  want  to  hold  a  particular  place.  These 
cards  and  even  the  desks  are  scrawled  with  auto- 
matic writing  and  sketches  by  the  inattentive 
hands  of  students.  The  seats,  long  benches  with 
a  fixed  desk  and  book  rack  in  front,  are  better 
than  those  found  in  English  universities,  but  not 
so  good  as  the  American  individual  seats.  There 
are  plenty  of  windows  along  one  side  of  the  room, 
and  the  walls  —  white  above,  light  green  below 
—  diffuse  the  rays  agreeably.  The  floor  slants 
down  to  a  plain  pine  desk  and  a  small  blackboard. 
On  the  wall  is  a  mosaic  portrait  of  the  late  Pro- 
fessor Abbe,  the  real  patron  of  the  University,  for 
a  prosperous  optician  is  of  much  more  use  to  a 
modern  university  than  a  needy  Gross-Herzog. 

Promptly  on  the  hour  a  vigorous   shuffling  and 
stamping  of  feet  announces  the  arrival  of  the  pro- 

[286] 


RUDOLF  EUCKEN 

fessor,  who  begins  with  " Mein'  Herren  und  Damen" 
as  his  first  foot  steps  upon  the  platform.  A  German 
professor  always  gives  good  measure,  a  full  hourful, 
pressed  down,  shaken  together,  and  running  over; 
no  period  of  preliminary  meditation  on  what  he 
shall  say  and  of  casual  conversation  at  the  end,  as 
often  in  America.  Nor  do  the  German  professors 
find  it  necessary  to  adopt  the  low  voice,  indifferent 
air  and  hesitating  utterance  regarded  at  Oxford  and 
Harvard  as  the  mark  of  the  gentleman  and  the 
scholar.  In  fact  I  find,  in  roaming  about  our  uni- 
versities, that  so  many  of  our  younger  men  have 
adopted  this  pitch  and  tempo,  being  often  inaudible 
and  never  impressive  to  the  back  seats,  that  I  am 
tempted  to  lay  down  the  law  that  the  younger  the 
instructor  the  poorer  the  voice.  When  I  complain 
of  it  they  reply  coldly:  "One  can  never  shout  and 
tell  the  truth."  But  Eucken  is  evidently  not 
afraid  that  being  heard  will  impair  his  veracity. 
You  might  take  him  for  a  revivalist.  You  would 
not  be  wrong  if  you  did.  His  voice  rings  out  loud 
and  clear.  He  is  tremendously  in  earnest.  Oc- 
casionally, when  he  thinks  of  it,  he  sits  down. 
But  not  for  long.  He  springs  to  his  feet  and  throws 
himself  forward  on  the  reading-desk  in  the  effort 
to  really  reach  his  audience.  He  clasps  his  hands 

[287] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

to  his  breast  and  then  throws  his  arms  out  wide, 
as  though  to  seize  the  Geistesleben  with  which  his 
heart  is  overflowing  and  spread  it  far  over  a  material- 
istic and  indifferent  generation.  Who  can  doubt 
the  reality  of  "the  spiritual  life"  after  he  has  seen 
Eucken  ?  It  shines  in  his  face.  We  do  not  need 
to  be  told  that  Activism  is  his  philosophy.  It 
shows  in  his  movements.  He  lives  his  theories. 
Few  philosophers  do,  luckily  for  most  of  them. 

"Happiness"  is  the  subject  of  this  lecture.  The 
spiritual  life  is  the  theme  of  it,  as  always.  The 
spiritual  life,  he  says,  goes  out  from  within  and 
transforms  the  world,  thus  giving  true  happiness. 
We  must  work  with  the  world  movement  if  we 
would  partake  of  its  divine  purpose.  And  here  he 
quotes  Plotinus,  the  first  religious  philosopher,  for 
whom  he  has  as  high  regard  as  have  Maeterlinck 
and  Bergson.  We  must  utilize  the  force  of  faith ; 
must  bring  this  Christian  power  into  modern  life. 
True  ability  is  moral  ability.  Labor  is  not  merely 
activity ;  it  has  a  purpose ;  it  is  directed  against 
opposition.  By  strife  and  striving  we  must  reach 
the  reality  of  the  spiritual  life.  Through  labor  and 
love  we  attain  our  true  selves.  The  fulfilling  of 
duty  is  inner  freedom.  The  unrest  and  stress  of 
the  present  day  are  the  signs  of  a  new  spiritual 

[288] 


RUDOLF  EUCKEN 

birth.  The  function  of  philosophy  is  not  to  afford 
intellectual  or  esthetic  gratification,  but  it  is  to 
deepen  and  enrich  life.  To  the  fine  old  German 
saying,  "A  man  is  more  than  his  work",  Eucken 
added  "Mankind  is  more  than  his  culture."  It  is 
a  Lebensanschauung  rather  than  a  Weltanschauung 
that  he  teaches,  for  to  him  a  theory  of  life  is  more 
important  than  a  theory  of  the  cosmos. 

These  are  merely  a  few  fragmentary  thoughts 
that  I  gathered  in  that  memorable  hour.  Of  no 
value  in  themselves,  I  give  them  merely  to  prove 
that  I  got  something  out  of  the  lecture,  for  I  never 
understood  spoken  German  until  I  heard  Eucken. 
But  even  a  deaf  man  would  have  found  it  profitable 
to  be  there.  A  second  lecture  followed  immedi- 
ately, on  "Pessimism  and  Optimism",  delivered 
with  the  same  vigor  and  listened  to  with  the  same 
interest.  Professor  Eucken  was  then  sixty-seven 
years  old,  and  would  have  been  Carnegied  if  he  were 
in  an  American  university,  instead  of  giving  lectures 
from  seven  to  nine.  His  hair  and  beard  are  pure 
white,  but  set  off  handsomely  his  pink  cheeks  and 
his  bright  blue  eyes  still  unspectacled. 

And  when  he  leaves  the  lecture  room  he  does  not 
leave  his  work,  but  goes  to  more  of  it  at  home.  On 
one  wall  of  his  study  is  a  photograph  of  Michael 

[289] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

Angelo's  "Creation",  from  the  Sistine  Chapel,  and 
on  the  opposite  a  cast  of  a  section  of  the  Parthenon 
frieze.  Between  these  is  the  desk  of  the  man  who 
has  brought  together  the  highest  aspirations  of 
Greek  and  Christian  culture ;  a  table  stacked  high 
with  papers  and  manuscripts. 

His  correspondence  is  now  voluminous,  but  he 
answers  all  letters  promptly  and  carefully,  writing 
his  replies  in  the  old-fashioned  way,  with  a  pen. 
He  receives  all  visitors  and  will  talk  of  his  philosophy 
to  a  single  auditor  with  the  same  unwearied  en- 
thusiasm as  to  an  audience.  Even  those  who  are 
repelled  by  the  severity  of  his  literary  style  are  at- 
tracted by  the  charm  of  his  personality,  and  this 
accounts  in  large  part  for  his  devoted  following 
in  all  parts  of  the  world. 

After  granting  me  an  interview  which  took  the 
heart  out  of  his  afternoon,  Professor  Eucken  re- 
turned good  for  evil  by  inviting  me  to  dinner  in 
the  evening,  when  I  found  that  the  lady  on  my 
right  was  from  Nebraska  and  the  one  on  my  left 
from  Switzerland,  while  around  the  table  I  saw  a 
young  Boer  from  the  Transvaal,  a  don  from  Oxford, 
a  professor  from  Tokyo,  and  representatives  of  I 
don't  know  how  many  other  nationalities. 

The  extension  of  the  influence  of  Professor  Eucken 
[290] 


RUDOLF  EUCKEN 

through  this  hearty  hospitality  is  due  largely  to  his 
wife.  Frau  Eucken  has  happily  not  confined  her- 
self to  the  duties  which  the  Kaiser  prescribes  as 
woman's  only  sphere,  Kirche,  Kueche  und  Kinder.1 
She  is  not  only  wife,  mother  and  housekeeper,  but 
artist  and  musician  as  well.  Her  success  in  manag- 
ing what  might  be  called  an  international  salon  of 
philosophy  is  facilitated  by  her  ability  to  converse 
in  many  languages.  On  account  of  the  generous 
hospitality  extended  to  students  and  strangers  by 
the  Eucken  household  a  removal  was  made  last 
year  to  a  new  villa  in  the  suburbs.  Professor 
Eucken's  wife  and  daughter  came  with  him  on  his 
visit  to  America. 

Eucken's  philosophy  of  life  is  dramatic.  His 
life  has  been  undramatic ;  the  even,  ordered  course 
of  the  typical  German  professor,  made  even  more 
uneventful  by  reason  of  his  mastery  of  the  gentle 
art  of  not  making  enemies.  Born  in  Aurich,  East 
Friesland,  January  5,  1846,  he  studied  at  Gottingen 
under  Lotze,  and  at  Berlin  under  Trendelenburg ; 
taught  for  four  years  in  a  gymnasium;  then  for 
three  years  in  the  University  of  Basel;  in  1874  was 
called  to  the  University  of  Jena,  where  he  has  ever 

1  These  must,  I  suppose,  be  translated  into  English  as  "  kirk,  kitchen 
and  kids." 

[291] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

since  remained,  in  spite  of  calls  to  larger  institutions. 
His  inner  life  has  been  as  uneventful  as  its  external 
aspects ;  a  continuous,  methodical,  logical  develop- 
ment of  thought,  without  leaps  or  backslidings. 

First,  in  1878,  he  laid  the  foundations  in  the 
study  of  the  concepts  of  philosophy  which  attracted 
the  attention  of  President  Porter.  Seven  years 
later  he  was  ready  to  outline  his  own  guiding  theory 
in  a  volume  bearing  the  characteristically  Germanic 
title  of  "A  Prolegomena  for  the  Investigation  of 
the  Unity  of  the  Spiritual  Life  in  the  Consciousness 
and  Acts  of  Mankind."  From  this  standpoint  of 
the  unique  significance  of  the  spiritual  life  he  then 
reviewed  the  whole  history  of  the  evolution  of 
philosophy  from  Plato  to  Nietzsche.  His  purpose 
in  this  work,  known  in  English  as  "The  Problem 
of  Human  Life",  was,  as  he  explains,  "to  afford 
historical  confirmation  of  the  view  that  concep- 
tions are  determined  by  life,  not  life  by  concep- 
tions", and  "that  human  destinies  are  not  decided 
by  mere  opinions  and  whims,  either  of  individuals 
or  of  masses  of  individuals,  but  rather  that  they 
are  ruled  by  spiritual  necessities  with  a  spiritual 
aim  and  purport,  and  that  for  man  a  new  world 
dawns,  transcending  the  merely  natural  domain  — 
the  world,  namely,  of  the  spiritual  life." 

[292] 


RUDOLF  EUCKEN 

The  sentences  quoted  are  alone  enough  to  show 
that  Eucken's  "history  of  philosophy"  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  what  usually  goes  by  that 
name,  that  is  the  chronicling  of  the  speculations  of 
successive  generations  of  metaphysicians,  each  one 
wiping  clean  the  slate  before  he  began  to  write. 
Eucken  sees  an  aim  and  purpose  in  philosophic 
thought.  He  does  not  regard  it  as  a  mere  amuse- 
ment or  as  an  intellectual  exercise,  but  rather  as  a 
method  by  which  humanity  may  grow  into  a  higher 
sphere  of  existence.  The  vital  need  of  the  day, 
then,  is  to  awaken  the  present  indifferent  and  busy 
generation  to  a  realization  of  the  supreme  im- 
portance of  spiritual  things  and  to  the  necessity 
of  bringing  the  Christian  religion  into  vital  con- 
nection with  modern  thought. 

This  is  the  task  to  which  Eucken  devoted  his 
energies  when  by  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury he  had  fully  matured  his  views,  and  the  rapid 
succession  of  volumes  which  have  since  come  from 
his  pen  are  concerned  with  the  moral  and  intellec- 
tual difficulties  which  nowadays  impede  religious 
progress. 

The  development  of  natural  science  and  especially 
the  theory  of  evolution  have  led  to  the  identification 
of  man  with  nature.  Yet  the  very  fact  that  we 

[293] 


SIX  MAJOR   PROPHETS 

have  come  to  know  that  we  belong  to  nature  shows 
that  we  are  more  than  nature. 

A  transcendence  of  nature  is  already  accomplished 
in  the  process  of  thought.  A  consideration  of  all  the 
facts  leads  us  to  the  result  that  a  life  consisting  solely 
of  nature  and  intelligence  involves  an  intolerable  in- 
consistency ;  form  and  content  are  sharply  separated 
from  each  other ;  thought  is  strong  enough  to  dis- 
turb the  sense  of  satisfaction  with  nature,  but  is  too 
weak  to  construct  a  new  world  in  opposition  to  it. 
Life  is  in  a  state  of  painful  uncertainty  and  man  is  a 
Prometheus  bound  in  that  he  must  experience  all  the 
constraint  and  meaninglessness  of  the  life  of  nature, 
and  must  suffer  therefrom  an  increasing  pain  without 
being  able  to  change  this  state  in  any  way.1 

From  time  to  time  in  the  course  of  history,  spiritual 
impulses  arise  which  are  fundamentally  different 
from  physical  self-preservation.  "They  force  human 
activity  into  particular  channels ;  they  speak  to  us 
with  a  tone  of  command  and  require  absolute 
obedience.  Neither  the  interests  of  individuals  nor 
those  of  whole  classes  prevail  against  them ;  every 
consideration  of  utility  vanishes  before  their  inner 
necessity."  Religious  movements  show  life  in  a 
particular  form ;  something  emerges  in  it  which, 
unconcerned  with  the  weal  and  the  woe  of  man, 
follows  its  own  course  and  makes  absolute  demands. 

1  "Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal",  p.  118. 
[294] 


RUDOLF  EUCKEN 

Man  is  not  altogether  the  creature  of  his  environ- 
ment, nor  are  his  moral  standards  determined  by 
society.  The  individual  is  able  in  the  light  of  his 
own  conscience  to  approve  and  value  something 
which  all  around  him  reject;  and  conversely  to 
condemn  and  reject  something  which  all  around 
him  esteem  and  respect.  This  opposition  of  in- 
dividuals to  the  condition  of  things  in  the  social 
environment  has  been  the  main  source  of  all  inner 
progress  in  matters  of  morality. 

This  line  of  thought  leads  Eucken  to  the  con- 
clusion that  a  new  life  distinct  from  that  of  nature 
arises  in  our  soul.  The  spiritual  life  is  not  the 
product  of  a  gradual  development  from  the  life 
of  nature,  but  has  an  independent  origin  and  evolves 
new  powers  and  standards.  We  must  recognize 
in  the  spiritual  life  a  universal  life  which  transcends 
man,  is  shared  by  him  and  raises  him  to  itself. 
The  philosophical  treatment  of  history  ought  first 
of  all  to  trace  the  liberation  of  life  from  the  mere 
human ;  the  inner  elevation  of  our  being  to  a  more 
than  human. 

In  discussing  the  question  of  how  man  attains 
the  spiritual  life,  Eucken  steers  carefully  between 
the  position  of  Buddhism,  that  each  man  must 
work  out  his  own  salvation  without  any  aid  from 

[295] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

above,  and  the  extreme  Calvinistic  position,  that 
man  is  purely  passive  and  altogether  undeserving. 
Or  to  quote  his  own  words : 

It  is  necessary  to  acknowledge  that  in  all  the 
spiritual  movement  which  appears  in  the  domain 
of  man,  there  is  a  revelation  of  the  spiritual  world ; 
as  merely  human  power  cannot  lead  the  whole  to 
new  heights,  in  all  development  of  the  spiritual 
life  the  communication  of  the  new  world  must  pre- 
cede the  activity  of  man.  At  the  same  time,  where 
we  are  concerned  with  a  life  that  is  independent, 
and  of  which  the  activity  is  conscious  and  self- 
determined,  the  change  cannot  possibly  merely 
happen  to  man ;  it  must  be  taken  up  by  his  own 
activity ;  it  needs  his  own  decision  and  acceptance. 

Only  through  ceaseless  activity  can  life  remain  at 
the  height  to  which  it  has  attained. 

This  leads  to  the  distinctive  form  of  Eucken's 
philosophy  of  life,  known  as  Activism.  This  is 
like  Pragmatism  in  its  rejection  of  the  mere  intellec- 
tualistic  view  of  life  and  in  basing  truth  upon  a 
more  spontaneous  and  essential  activity.  But  Euck- 
en's objection  to  Pragmatism  is  stated  in  the  follow- 
ing language : 

Pragmatism,  which  has  recently  made  so  much 
headway  among  English-speaking  peoples  and  be- 
yond them,  is  more  inclined  to  shape  the  world  and 
life  in  accordance  with  human  conditions  and  needs 
than  to  invest  spiritual  activity  with  an  independence 

[296] 


RUDOLF   EUCKEN 

in  relation  to  these,  and  apply  its  standards  to  the 
testing  and  sifting  of  the  whole  content  of  human  life. 
At  its  highest,  religion  has  always  been  concerned 
with  winning  a  new  world  and  a  new  humanity,  not 
with  the  achievement  of  something  within  the  old 
world  and  for  the  old  humanity. 

It  will  be  seen  that  Eucken  does  not  fall  in  with 
the  tendency  of  the  times  to  subordinate  the  in- 
dividual to  society.  The  spiritual  life  springs  up, 
not  in  the  "social  consciousness",  but  in  the  soul 
of  the  individual,  elevating  his  spiritual  nature 
above  all  environment.  But  such  a  person  is 
guarded  against  the  arrogance  of  a  superman  by 
realizing  that  this  superiority  is  not  due  to  personal 
merit,  but  solely  to  the  presence  of  the  spiritual 
world. 

This,  as  Eucken  recognizes,  may  be  called  a  form 
of  mysticism,  but  it  differs  decidedly  from  the  older 
mysticism  in  some  important  respects.  It  is  not 
Quietism,  but  its  opposite,  Activism.  Eucken  does 
not  regard  the  individual  as  seeking  a  peaceful 
haven  by  absorption  into  the  infinite ;  on  the  con- 
trary, the  infinite  enters  the  individual  and  rouses 
him  to  intensest  and  creative  activity. 

Here  Eucken  shows  a  striking  similarity  to  Berg- 
son.  The  Geistesleben  might  be  regarded  as  a 
higher  development  or  manifestation  of  the  elan 

[297] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

vital.  Both  involve  the  conception  of  an  upward 
impulse  acting  at  individual  points  which  thus 
become  centers  of  spontaneous  vital  activity.  It 
is  curious  that  this  view,  so  characteristically 
modern  and  as  novel  as  anything  can  be  in  the 
realm  of  metaphysical  speculation,  should  have 
simultaneously  and  independently  been  made  a 
fundamental  doctrine  by  two  philosophers  so  unlike 
in  temperament  and  training,  the  French  philosopher 
starting  from  the  standpoint  of  mathematical  physics 
and  Spencerian  evolution,  and  the  German  from 
academic  metaphysics  and  Christian  theology.  Such 
a  coincidence,  as  well  as  the  reception  which  the 
teachings  of  Bergson  and  Eucken  have  received 
in  many  lands,  show  that  their  common  principle 
is  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the  age.  Eucken 
and  Bergson  met  for  the  first  time  at  Columbia 
University  in  1912. 

It  might  be  feared  that  Eucken,  emphasizing  as 
he  does  the  individualistic  origin  of  religious  in- 
spiration and  realizing  as  he  does  the  injury  done 
to  the  Christian  cause  by  clinging  to  antiquated 
formulas  and  medieval  conceptions,  would  be  in- 
clined to  undervalue  ecclesiastical  institutions  and 
to  advocate  too  violent  a  break  with  historic  Chris- 
tianity. But  here  again  his  moderation  and  sanity 

[298] 


RUDOLF  EUCKEN 

are  manifest.  He  cannot  be  called  orthodox  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  established  Lutheran  Church. 
He  agrees  entirely  with  his  colleague  Haeckel  in 
condemning  the  union  of  Church  and  State,  but  for 
opposite  reasons;  Haeckel  because  the  Church  re- 
ceives thereby  artificial  support ;  Eucken  because 
the  Church  is  thereby  hampered  in  its  freedom  of 
development. 

He  never,  however,  falls  into  the  error  of  thinking 
that  a  "  new  "  religion  can  be  made  to  order  to  suit 
the  times,  or  even  the  needs  of  any  one  person.  He 
finds  in  historic  Christianity  all  the  essentials  of  a 
permanent  and  universal  religion,  capable,  when 
properly  understood  and  presented,  of  satisfying  the 
severe  requirements  of  modern  thought  and  feeling. 
But  this  is  not  to  be  accomplished  by  merely  elim- 
inating whatever  the  modern  mind  finds  objection- 
able. 

A  religion  is  not  primarily  a  mere  theory  concern- 
ing things  human  and  divine  —  such  a  theory  can, 
of  course,  be  quite  easily  put  together  with  a  little 
ingenuity  —  it  discloses  ultimate  revelations  of  the 
spiritual  life,  further  developments  of  reality,  great 
organizations  of  living  energy,  movements,  in  a 
word,  which  have  convulsed  the  age  in  which  they 
came  victoriously  to  birth,  and  have  subsequently 
proved  themselves  strong  enough  to  attract  large 
portions  of  mankind,  weld  each  of  these  inwardly 

[299] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

together,  and  set  an  invisible  world  before  it  as  the 
main  basis  of  life.  In  such  upheavals  of  the  life  of 
the  people  there  is  opened  a  rich  mine  of  fact  which 
becomes  the  property  of  all  men,  and  includes  valu- 
able experiences  of  humanity  as  a  whole.  He  who 
would  cut  himself  off  from  this  great  stream  of  ex- 
perience, inward  as  well  as  outward,  will  soon  find 
out  how  little  the  isolated  individual  can  do  in 
matters  of  this  kind.  It  is  easy  to  find  fault  with 
what  tradition  hands  down,  no  less  easy  to  draw  up 
vague  views  of  one's  own,  but  how  immense  is  the  dis- 
tance which  separates  procedure  such  as  this  from  the 
creative  effort  which  urges  its  sure  way  forward, 
from  the  synthesis  which  embraces  all  men's  lives 
and  exercises  an  elemental  compulsion  upon  them.1 

Eucken's  clairvoyant  faith  sees  through  the 
present  anti-religious  atmosphere  the  dawning  of  a 
new  era  in  which  the  spiritual  life  shall  again  be 
dominant.  Yet  no  one  has  recognized  more  clearly 
the  alienation  of  the  Church  from  the  cultural  and 
the  practical  life  of  the  day.  This  chasm  is  no 
doubt  greater  in  Germany,  where  the  Catholic 
and  Protestant  churches  are  State  institutions  and 
identified  with  reactionary  elements,  than  it  is  in 
our  own  country,  where  there  is  fortunately  no 
Church,  but  many  churches,  all  equally  free  to 
adapt  themselves  to  changing  conditions  and  to 
prove  themselves  useful  to  society  in  their  own 

1  "Christianity  and  the  New  Idealism",  p.  146. 
[300] 


RUDOLF  EUCKEN 

way.  But  it  must  be  admitted  that  our  churches 
are  not  availing  themselves  of  this  exceptional  free- 
dom and  do  not  show  the  originality  and  diversity 
which  is  characteristic  of  life  and  growth. 

Eucken  is  conciliatory,  but  no  compromiser.  He 
does  not  solicit  for  religion  a  humble  place  in  modern 
life  by  using  arguments  like  those  employed  in  the 
sale  of  "patent  medicines",  that  it  is  innocuous  at 
the  least  and  may  somehow  do  some  good.  He  meets 
modern  science  upon  her  own  ground.  He  claims  for 
religion  an  equal  practicality  and  efficiency;  he  de- 
mands for  it  a  greater  certitude,  and  he  is  willing,  as 
Jesus  was  willing,  to  put  it  to  the  pragmatic  test. 

Since  we  have  found  that  religion  is  linked  thus 
closely  with  the  whole,  we  need  not  make  any  timid 
compromise  with  certain  superficial  contemporary 
movements  and  content  ourselves  with  a  lower 
degree  of  certainty,  saying,  for  instance,  that  we  can 
never  altogether  eliminate  the  subjective  element, 
and  that  religious  truths  can  never  have  the  cer- 
tainty of  such  formulae  as  2x2  =  4.  On  the  con- 
trary, we  maintain  that  it  is  a  very  poor  conception 
of  religion  which  deems  any  certainty  superior  to 
hers,  and  does  not  claim  for  her  truth  a  far  more 
primary  certainty  than  that  of  the  formula  2x2  = 
4.  Only  a  shallow  and  perverse  conception  of  truth 
can  allow  the  certainty  of  the  part  to  exceed  the 
certainty  of  the  whole.1 

1  "Christianity  and  the  New  Idealism",  p.  28. 
IS01! 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

Either  religion  is  merely  a  product  of  human 
wishes  and  ideas  under  the  sanction  of  tradition  and 
social  convention  —  and  then  neither  art  nor  might 
nor  cunning  can  prevent  so  frail  a  fabrication  from 
being  whelmed  by  the  advancing  spiritual  tide  —  or 
else  religion  is  based  on  facts  of  a  suprahuman  order, 
and  in  that  case  the  most  violent  onslaught  cannot 
shake  her ;  rather  will  it  help  her  in  the  end,  through 
all  the  stress  and  toil  of  human  circumstance,  to 
discover  where  her  true  strength  lies,  and  to  express 
in  purer  ways  the  eternal  truth  that  is  in  her.1 

POSTSCRIPT,  1917 

I  have  thought  best  to  leave  the  article  on  Eucken 
just  as  I  published  it  in  The  Independent  of  Febru- 
ary 27,  1913,  with  only  a  few  slight  changes  in 
tense  and  time  references.  It  presents  a  picture  of 
German  life  and  thought  as  I  saw  it  shortly  before 
the  war,  and  it  would  be  impossible  for  me  to  bring 
it  up  to  date  now  when  the  British  censorship  pre- 
vents German  books  and  papers  from  reaching 
America.  I  can  only  add  some  quotations  from 
Eucken's  recent  writings  to  show  his  attitude  to- 
ward the  war. 

In  the  fall  of  1914,  Eucken  joined  with  his 
colleague  in  the  university  and  his  opponent  in 
philosophy,  Professor  Ernst  Haeckel,  in  a  public 
statement  charging  that  British  greed  and  egotism 

1  "The  Truth  of  Religion." 
[302] 


RUDOLF  EUCKEN 

had  caused  the  Great  War.1  In  the  following  spring 
Eucken  sent  an  appeal  to  the  American  people  in 
the  form  of  eight  questions  which  I  quote  entire. 

You  say  that  we  are  a  nation  militarist  and  greedy 
for  conquest.  Permit  us  a  few  questions  with  re- 
gard to  that  rash  statement. 

First.  —  How  do  you  explain  that  in  times  gone  by 
Germany  did  not  take  advantage  of  the  difficulties  of 
her  present  opponents  —  as,  for  instance,  England's 
difficulty  during  the  Boer  war  or  Russia's  difficulty 
during  the  Japanese  war  ?  If  we  had  meant  conquest 
should  we  have  chosen  the  very  moment  when  half 
the  world  was  against  us,  and  we  were  numerically  in 
the  minority  ?  Do  you  really  think  that  we  are  as 
stupid  as  all  that? 

Second.  —  Next,  how  do  you  explain  that  all 
parties  in  Germany  approve  of  the  policy  of  the 
government  and  loyally  hold  together,  including  the 
Social  Democrats  ?  Yesterday  they  were  our  decided 
opponents.  Do  you  believe  that  the  Socialists  have 
overnight,  as  it  were,  become  changed  from  decided 
opponents  to  adherents  of  militarism  ? 

Third.  —  How  do  you  explain  the  fact  that  the 
Americans  who  were  in  Germany  at  the  outbreak  of 
the  war  in  an  overwhelming  majority  sided  with  us  ? 
Does  not  the  opinion  of  those  who  see  events  quite 
near  —  nay,  who  live  through  them  —  carry  greater 
weight  than  the  view  of  such  as  observe  occurrences 
from  a  remote  distance  ? 

Fourth.  —  You  believe  that  the  Germans  are  op- 
pressed and  narrowed  down  by  the  rule  of  militarism. 
How  do  you  explain  that  education  and  technical 

1  Published  in  The  Independent,  September  28,  1914. 
[303] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

and  scientific  research  are  so  highly  developed  and 
universally  esteemed  in  Germany  and  that  for  this 
reason  so  many  Americans  come  to  Germany  in  order 
to  study  sciences  and  arts  ? 

Fifth. --You  always  discuss  war  with  regard  to 
Belgium,  France  and  England  only.  Have  you  for- 
gotten Russia,  with  her  one  hundred  and  fifty  million 
inhabitants  and  her  army,  which  is  by  far  the  largest 
in  the  whole  world  ?  Russia  is  a  danger  to  Germany 
and  to  the  whole  of  Europe  and  just  now  insists  on 
the  possession  of  Constantinople.  Have  you  for- 
gotten that  Russia,  by  interfering  with  the  Servian 
murder  case,  began  the  war,  and  that  England,  ac- 
cording to  the  parliamentary  statement  made  by 
Foreign  Secretary  Sir  Edward  Grey,  was  deter- 
mined, even  before  the  German  invasion  of  Belgium, 
to  abandon  her  neutrality  in  favor  of  France  ? 

Sixth.  —  You  generally  argue  that  all  Europe  was 
in  profound  peace  and  that  only  the  greed  of  Ger- 
many disturbed  that  peace.  Have  you  forgotten 
that  long  before  the  war  there  was  a  triple  entente 
which  was  directed  against  Germany  and  that  the 
entente  newspapers  openly  discussed  the  war  plans 
hatched  against  Germany  and  even  recommended 
1916  as  a  suitable  year  for  commencing  hostilities  ? 

Seventh.  —  You  want  to  be  good  Christians  and  as 
such  work  for  peace  among  the  nations.  Can  you 
reconcile  such  Christianity  with  the  fact  that  your 
country  sends  huge  consignments  of  arms  and  am- 
munition to  our  opponents  and  thus  intensifies  and 
lengthens  the  war  ?  Can  you  further  reconcile  that 
with  neutrality,  a  neutrality  in  spirit  and  not  merely 
in  the  letter  ? 

Eighth.  —  Do  not  you  think  that  a  great  nation 
with  a  glorious  past  should  see  the  events  of  the  day 

[304] 


RUDOLF  EUCKEN 

with  its  own  eyes  and  that  such  independence  of 
thought  is  the  highest  test  of  true  liberty  ?  But  you 
contemplate  present  history  more  or  less  through 
English  spectacles,  as  if  your  country  were  still  a 
British  colony  and  not  an  independent  empire  with 
its  own  goals  and  standards.  In  such  a  passion- 
stirred  age  as  ours  neutrals  have  the  lofty  duty  to 
keep  out  of  party  strife  and  to  endeavor  to  be  just 
and  impartial  to  both  sides.  This  endeavor  is  lack- 
ing in  Germany's  American  opponents. 

That  even  the  antagonisms  aroused  by  the  war 
have  not  shaken  Eucken's  faith  in  the  power  of 
religion  and  philosophy  to  heal  the  wounds  of  hu- 
manity is  shown  by  a  recent  article  on  "The  Inter- 
national Character  of  Modern  Philosophy"  in  the 
Homiletic  Review  of  New  York.  In  this  he  discusses 
with  great  impartiality  the  contributions  which 
England,  France,  Germany,  and  Italy  have  made  to 
philosophy  and  concludes  as  follows : 

After  all,  philosophy  is  summoned  to  proclaim  the 
unity  of  mankind  over  against  the  present  split 
among  the  peoples.  To  be  sure,  this  does  not  mean 
that  individual  philosophers  are  less  earnest  to  put 
forward  the  claims  of  their  own  people  than  the 
claims  of  others  ;  for  they  are  not  mere  scholars,  they 
are  also  living  men  and  citizens  of  their  own  nation. 
When  they  see  this  assaulted  and  its  existence  put  in 
peril,  it  is  for  them  a  holy  duty  to  come  to  the  defense 
of  the  fatherland  —  if  not  with  the  weapons  of  war. 
at  least  to  do  their  best  with  the  weapons  of  the 

1305] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

intellect.  Meanwhile,  the  belief  is  entirely  proper 
that  the  intellectual  gains  which  are  the  result  of 
philosophical  labor  remain  unharmed  by  war,  that  a 
realm  of  intellectual  creation  will  retain  full  recog- 
nition beyond  the  enmities  of  man.  Keenest  blame 
is  deserved  by  the  attempt  to  array  against  each 
other  the  intellectual  leaders  of  a  people  which  is  for 
the  moment  a  foe,  or  to  disparage  the  entire  mental 
character  of  the  opponent.  That  is  the  stamp  of  a 
small  and  vengeful  disposition  —  he  who  aims  to 
depreciate  others  to  whom  great  thanks  are  due  dis- 
honors himself.  Let  each,  therefore,  remain  true  to 
his  own  people,  but  never  forget  the  task  and  aim  of 
philosophy  —  to  consider  things  under  the  form  of 
perpetuity,  maintaining  for  humanity  in  the  present  a 
world  superior  to  all  the  littlenesses  of  human  action. 
A  further  and  much  more  weighty  task  is  from  this 
arising  for  philosophy  —  to  work  mightily  for  the 
inner  unity  of  human  life  and  endeavor ;  the  lack  of 
such  a  unity  has  contributed  not  a  little  to  whet  the 
antagonisms  of  the  nations.  .  .  .  Only  when  we  are 
convinced  that  we  belong  together  essentially,  that 
we  have  a  great  work  to  accomplish  in  common  and 
have  to  raise  mankind  from  the  stage  of  nature  to 
that  of  intellect  —  that  we  have  to  carry  on  unitedly 
a  fight  against  the  manifold  unreason  of  life  —  only 
by  the  strengthening  and  operation  of  such  convic- 
tions can  the  division  of  humanity  into  hostile 
nationalities  be  successfully  withstood.  Not  through 
elegant  addresses  and  articles,  only  by  means  of  a 
dynamic  deepening  of  life  and  the  introduction  of 
new  power  can  we  progress  in  the  solution  of  these 
problems.1 

1  "The  International  Character  of  Modern  Philosophy,"  Homiletic 
Review,  April,  1916. 

[306] 


RUDOLF  EUCKEN 


How  TO  READ  EUCKEN 

Eucken  is  not  a  man  of  one  book.  He  has  put  forth 
his  ideas  in  many  different  forms  ;  large  volumes  and 
little,  works  historical,  expository,  argumentative, 
theoretical  and  practical,  but  his  point  of  view  has 
remained  throughout  his  long  productive  career  es- 
sentially unchanged,  and  is  so  clearly  indicated  in  all 
his  works  that  one  may  be  sure  of  obtaining  the 
fundamental  principles  of  his  philosophy  from  what- 
ever volume  he  selects.  If,  however,  I  am  expected 
to  prescribe  a  particular  book  as  an  introduction  to 
Eucken,  I  should  say  that  the  general  reader  who  is 
interested  in  the  relation  of  philosophy  to  religion 
—  and  one  who  is  not  interested  in  that  would  not 
care  to  read  Eucken  anyway  —  would  find  "Chris- 
tianity and  the  New  Idealism"  (translated  by  Lucy 
Judge  Gibson  and  W.  R.  Boyce  Gibson,  Harper) 
most  suitable  for  the  purpose.  It  is  a  small  volume, 
as  easy  reading  as  anything  of  Eucken's,  and  dis- 
cusses frankly  the  present  crisis  in  religious  thought 
and  indicates  what  he  believes  the  churches  ought 
to  discard  and  what  they  must  maintain  of  their 
inherited  doctrines  and  forms.  "The  Truth  of 
Religion  "  (translated  by  W.  Tudor  Jones,  Putnam) 
covers  similar  ground,  but  in  a  more  thorough  and 
theoretical  manner. 

The  volumes  entitled  in  their  English  version 
"The  Meaning  and  Value  of  Life"  (Gibson  trans- 
lation, Macmillan);  "The  Life  of  the  Spirit" 
(translated  by  F.  L.  Pogson,  Putnam),  are  in- 
tended for  the  non-philosophical  reader;  while 
"Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideals"  (translated  by 
Alban  G.  Widgery,  Macmillan);  "Main  Currents 
of  Modern  Thought :  A  Study  of  the  Spiritual  and 

[307] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

Intellectual  Movements  of  the  Present  Day"  (trans- 
lated by  Meyrick  Booth,  Scribner) ;  and  "The 
Contest  for  the  Spiritual  Life"  (Putnam)  are  of  a 
more  technical  character. 

"The  Problem  of  Human  Life  as  Viewed  by  Great 
Thinkers  from  Plato  to  the  Present  Time"  (trans- 
lated by  Williston  S.  Hough  and  W.  R.  Boyce 
Gibson,  Scribner)  differs  decidedly  from  the  or- 
dinary history  of  philosophy  in  that  the  author  is 
not  trying  to  set  at  odds  and  overthrow  the  successive 
philosophers,  but  is  seeking  for  whatever  in  them  is 
good  and  permanent,  finally  coming  to  "see  them 
linked  together  as  workers  in  one  common  task  :  the 
task  of  building  up  a  spiritual  world  within  the  realm 
of  human  life,  of  proving  our  existence  to  be  both 
spiritual  and  natural." 

Single  lectures  and  articles  by  Eucken  readily 
accessible  in  English  are:  "Religion  and  Life" 
(Putnam);  "Back  to  Religion"  (Pilgrim  Press); 
"Can  We  Still  Be  Christians?"  (Macmillan) ; 
"Naturalism  or  Idealism"  (the  Nobel  Lecture). 
Twenty  of  his  papers  are  included  in  "Collected 
Essays  of  Rudolf  Eucken  (Scribner,  1914). 

The  titles  of  Eucken's  chief  works  in  German 
and  in  the  English  versions  are  as  follows:  "Die 
Grundbegriffe  der  Gegenwart"  (The  Main  Currents 
of  Modern  Thought),  1878;  "Die  Einheit  des 
Geisteslebens  in  Bewusstsein  und  Tat  der  Mensch- 
heit",  1888  ;  "Die  Lebensanschauungen  der  Grossen 
Denker"  (The  Problem  of  Human  Life),  1890; 
"Der  Kampf  um  einen  geistigen  Lebensinhalt", 
1896;  "Der  Wahrheitsgehalt  der  Religion"  (The 
Truth  of  Religion),  1901  ;  "Grundlinien  einer  neuen 
Lebensanschauung"  (Life's  Basis  and  Life's  Ideal), 
1907  ;  "Hauptprobleme  der  Religionsphilosophie  der 

[308] 


RUDOLF  EUCKEN 

Gegenwart"  (Christianity  and  the  New  Idealism), 
1907;  "Sinn  und  Wert  des  Lebens"  (The  Meaning 
and  Value  of  Life),  1905;  "Einfiihrung  in  eine 
Philosophic  des  Geisteslebens"  (The  Life  of  the 
Spirit),  1908;  "Erkennen  und  Leben"  (Knowledge 
and  Life,  1912). 

Of  the  numerous  books  and  articles  about  Eucken 
which  have  appeared  in  Europe,  it  will  be  sufficient 
to  mention :  "  Rudolf  Eucken.  Die  Erneuerer  des 
deutschen  Idealismus",  by  Theodor  Kappstein  (Ber- 
lin-Schoneberg :  Bucherlag  der  "Hilfe") ;  "Rudolf 
Eucken's  Werk,  Eine  neue  idealistische  Losung  des 
Lebensproblems",  by  Kurt  Kesseler  (Bunzlau : 
Kreuschmer,  1911)  ;  "Eucken's  dramatische  Lebens- 
philosophie",  by  Otto  Braun  (Zeitschrift  fur  Phi- 
losophic und  Philosophische  Kritik,  1909);  "Rudolf 
Eucken's  Christenthum",  by  Ludwig  von  Gerdtell 
(Verlag  von  Becker).  On  Eucken's  seventieth  birth- 
day, January  5,  1916,  the  Zeitschrift  fur  Philosophic 
published  a  Festschrift  devoted  to  his  work.  "La 
philosophic  de  M.  Rudolph  Eucken",  by  Emile 
Boutroux  {Academic  des  Sciences  morales  et  poli- 
tiques,  1910). 

It  is  unnecessary  to  give  a  list  of  articles  about 
Eucken  in  American  magazines  because  any  library 
that  contains  the  files  will  have  a  periodical  index, 
but  a  few  references  may  be  given:  "Religious 
Philosophy  of  Eucken",  Harvard  Theological  Re- 
view (vol.  2,  p.  465,  1909);  "Eucken  and  St.  Paul", 
by  Richard  Roberts,  Contemporary  Review  (vol.  97, 
p.  71);  "Religious  Philosophy  of  Eucken",  by 
Baron  F.  von  Hiigel,  Hibbert  Journal  (vol.  10,  p. 
660);  "Eucken's  Philosophy  of  Life",  by  W.  Fite, 
The  Nation  (vol.  95,  p.  29);  "Eucken's  New  Gos- 
pel of  Activism",  Current  Literature  (vol.  53,  p.  67); 

[309] 


SIX  MAJOR  PROPHETS 

"Idealism  of  Rudolf  Eucken",  by  S.  H.  Mellone, 
International  Journal  of  Ethics  (vol.  21,  p.  15). 

There  are  two  excellent  expositions  of  Eucken's 
philosophy  in  English,  by  his  students  and  trans- 
lators:  "Rudolf  Eucken's  Philosophy  of  Life",  by 
W.  R.  Boyce  Gibson  (Macmillan),  and  "An  Interpre- 
tation of  Rudolf  Eucken's  Philosophy",  by  W.  Tudor 
Jones  (Putnam).  A  briefer  compendium,  "Eucken: 
A  Philosophy  of  Life  ",  by  A.  J.  Jones,  has  appeared  in 
a  series  of  handy  volumes  known  as  "The  People's 
Books"  (New  York:  Dodge  Publishing  Company). 
Meyrick  Booth  (Ph.D.  of  Jena)  has  published 
"Rudolf  Eucken:  His  Philosophy  and  Influence," 
London  (Unwin,  1913). 


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